County employee clinic a success after a year
Catoosa County officials say its employee health clinic has essentially paid for itself following the first year of operation.
The clinic, which is located in the Remco Business Center off Boynton Drive, opened in October 2017 in an attempt to offer county employees medical services while also saving the county a significant amount of money on insurance costs.
County Manager Alisha Vaughn presented a oneyear update on the clinic to the Board of Commissioners on Oct. 16 explaining that the clinic has surpassed expectations.
“This is awesome. In one year, the clinic has paid for itself, which is almost unheard of,” Vaughn said. “I do think this is a pretty amazing thing that Catoosa has. This is an amazing benefit to the employees.”
The clinic operates with one medical assistant and one nurse practitioner and is available to the employees 20 hours per week
Vaughn says the county’s insurance premium was set to go up significantly last year, but that having the clinic available halted that hike in costs.
“It was going to increase by six percent because we are not self-insured. We buy insurance from an outside company,” Vaughn said. “That six-percent increase would have meant an approximate $300,000 increase in cost. However, due to utilization of the clinic, we were able to provide documentation to United Health Care. That’s who we purchase our insurance from, and because we have the clinic, we were given a rate pass or discount. That discount equaled about the cost of the clinic, around $300,000, so basically it was a wash. … The clinic was able to pay for itself in the first year.”
When the clinic opened last year, County Chief Financial Officer Carl Henson explained that the clinic’s budget equated to $25,000 per month or $300,000 per year. That number included $17,500 per month to provider One to One for the management fee and personnel cost, $1,800 per month for rental of the building, and approximately $500 per month for utilities.
As far as the treatment employees are receiving at the clinic, Vaughn says a number of employees have been able to have health issues detected early.
“The clinic has been able to diagnose several diseases before they became serious,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn pointed out cases where employees were diagnosed with hypertension, severe anemia, pre-diabetes, thyroid disorders, cancer, pneumonia, and hyperglycemia.
Overall, Vaughn said 1,598 office visits were made, with 980 prescriptions written, 521 labs taken, and 90 doctor referrals.
Vaughn also explained that when the numbers are analyzed a little closer, there’s actually additional savings being had.
“For every dollar that we spend on the clinic, we get that whole dollar, so that all goes to the employee’s benefit,” Vaughn said. “When we spend a dollar on health insurance outside of the county, the insurance company gets a profit off that so we lose about 25 cents for every dollar that we spend, so even though we save $300,000 on the insurance, it’s really more like $375,000 due to that.”
Vaughn and Commissioner Jeff Long both pointed out that the clinic is also saving the amount of time employ- ees have to take off work to attend doctor’s appointments.
“They can get back to work faster instead of having to take half a day off to go to the doctor. … We all know doctor’s appointments can take a long time,” Vaughn said.
Although Vaughn’s oneyear update on the clinic’s progress indicates a worthwhile endeavor, resident George Battersby has repeatedly voiced his criticism of the clinic in several recent commission meetings.
“It’s a huge waste of money that’s happening every month,” Battersby said in during the Oct. 1 meeting. “I pass there three or four times a day and never see anybody in there except the two employees that we’re paying for. It’s wasting approximately $400,000 a year and you all continue to do nothing about it. It’s a disgrace, a waste of money, and I’m not going to get over it until something is done.”
Despite Battersby’s claims, Vaughn sees the clinic as a benefit to employees and hopes to it utilized more than it already has been.
“Hopefully our participation will continue to grow,” Vaughn said. “We broke even this year. Hopefully, in years going forward, we’ll actually see it saving money for your insurance costs.”