County inching closer to health clinic for workers
Catoosa County got a step closer to opening a health care clinic for employees on Aug. 1, when the county’s Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a service agreement with One to One Health for the management and staffing of the facility.
For months, county officials have been exploring the plan to open the employee specific clinic, and have included that plan in the new 2017-2018 budget.
“This is the next step, or the final step actually in making the employee health clinic a reality,” county attorney Chad Young said. “It’s a proposed service agreement between the county and One to One Health, LLC, to operate and manage the health clinic for Catoosa County.”
Young says the county recently bid the work out, with One to One fitting the bill for what the county wants the clinic to be.
“We did numerous interviews with various responders, and One to One Health was really the only truly local responder that was qualified, and they’re out of Chattanooga,” Young explained. “They have full responsibility and expertise for staffing and managing this health clinic. They agreed to cap their monthly fee at $17,500 per month, which includes monthly management, staffing, pass through for labs, dispensary for drugs, electronic medical records, medical supplies...and it includes a clinic that would be open almost 21 and half hours per week.”
As far as usage goes, county manager Jim Walker says the clinic will be open to employees and their dependents.
“It will be approximately 635 folks, almost 300 employees,” Walker said. “All told, with family members and dependents on the plans, it’ll be 635. That’s who’ll be able to use the clinic.”
The clinic, located at 313 Boynton Drive in the Remco Business Center, will be open various hours Monday through Friday.
“It’ll be five days per week,” Walker said. “Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eight in the morning until
12:30 p.m., and then Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. to make sure we cover shift work so everybody will get a chance to use the clinic. This will be a huge benefit to our employees.”
County Chief Financial Officer Carl Henson has budgeted $25,000 per month or $300,000 per year for the clinic. One to One’s portion of the budget will take up $17,500 per month for the management fee and personnel costs.
“We’re going to offer a supply of generic medicines, which are very inexpensive for maintenance like IVs, blood pressure, Gastro reflux and that sort of stuff,” Walker explained. “We’ll also have some blood work and labs. We don’t anticipate ever going over $22,700 per month to One to One, and then we have other costs that you all have already approved; it’s $1,800 per month for rent, and we don’t ever anticipate
our utilities going over $500.”
The driving force behind the clinic is so that the county can attempt to save money over the longterm on it’s insurance premiums.
“We currently pay about $5 million per year in health insurance premiums,” Walker said. “We have a fantastic plan, it’s one of the benefits of being an employee of the county. Our goal with this is to try stay where we are or drive our premiums down a little bit and let the clinic at least pay for itself.”
Walker also says the clinic will be great for employees who are dealing with existing illnesses, and go a long way in trying to prevent other health issues.
“We have a number of employees over the past few years that have become high-risk patients where they cost us over $250,000 in treatment,” Walker said. “If you go back and look at the diagnosis on these people, they were way into their illness before they ever got checked out because they didn’t want to pay the $35, or didn’t have the $35, or we didn’t make it convenient for them to try to get medical care.”
Walker said the county is also putting an emphasis on wellness by encouraging employees to stop smoking and providing education on weight control and alcohol use.
“I certainly think this is a wise investment on the part of the county,” Walker opined. “We’re hoping for a better workforce and a healthier workforce. We’ve never had a clinic before...if we get into this thing and the hours don’t work, we’ll change them.”
In the scope of things regarding cost, Henson stated that the county’s health provider adjusted the premium rate last year due to the planned clinic.
“We got a twopercent reduction to our insurance premium,” Henson said. “This past year, they raised it by one percent, but we’re still holding that other one percent reduction.”
“They wanted to raise it a lot more, but we assured them we were moving toward a clinic,” Walker added. “The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, and we’ve got to take it and see where it leads us. One thing you can’t put a price tag on is the life of our employees.”