A new employee clinic for Portage Township Schools employees, their spouses and their families should mean cost savings all around, school and local health officials say.
Working with the teachers union and North Shore, the school district used its self-insurance trust, or pool, to launch the clinic Aug. 1 as a way to keep staff healthy, which keeps the district’s bottom line a little healthier, too, said Superintendent Richard Weigel.
“It starts with the idea that our employees are healthier,” he said. “The more they’re healthy, I’m not paying for subs. (Employees are) not paying more money out of pocket. We have better education for our kids, and, when our employees are healthy, our insurance rates don’t go up.”
All insured district employees, about 575 workers, their spouses and families are eligible to use the clinic, which is attached to the NorthShore Clinic already at the high school. The patients pay nothing out of pocket for their visits and most procedures, like ear irrigations or wellness checkups, and their prescription costs, in many cases, will be lower, said Todd Elliott, NorthShore’s business development director.
When employees have to pay hundreds of dollars to $1,000 a month or more for medications, they’re less likely to buy those meds and more likely to see their health conditions worsen, starting a dangerous downward spiral, he said.
“That’s a huge one,” Elliott said of the pharmaceutical costs. “The pricing of the drugs is a lot cheaper than if (employees) went to another pharmacy” because the clinic gets the same drug prices as the federal government.
NorthShore operates a pharmacy across the street from the high school.
The clinic already has received rave reviews from most of the five to six employees and their family members she sees daily, said full-time nurse practitioner Deb Richardson, who works with medical assistant Erica Herrera full-time at the clinic.
The clinic is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., or after school as needed, and patients often can get in on the same day, Richardson said. That kind of flexibility is hard to find at other medical facilities, she said.
“Medicine is about relationships,” Richardson said. “That’s really, truly what I’ve been doing, is building relationships with people, and that’s what I’m hearing. Patients like being able to come in and to talk, they like being able to be listened to, so that I can get the complete story and give them the best possible care.”
The district pays a $3,000 monthly administrative fee, and the costs of wages for Richardson and Herrera are covered by the district’s self-insurance fund, Weigel said.
The clinic also was the result of strong cooperation between the district, NorthShore and the teachers union, said union president Deb Porter.
“The relationship between administration and union is better than it’s ever been with this administration,” she said. “We’ve been very collaborative, and we have made a lot of progress in our approach to what we can do to make Portage (schools) a great place to work, a great place to have your career.”
The clinic was made possible with some creativity in the district’s health insurance policies, Porter said. Several years ago, the district moved from three different policies — one for teachers, another for administrative staff and a third for other employees — to a state-sponsored plan to finally being self-insured, which led to reserve funds available.
An older reserve fund is paying for the clinic’s launch and first two years or so, while another reserve fund builds up to pay for the clinic going forward and other insurance costs, Porter said.
The district also offers health savings plans.
“We’re very excited about (the clinic),” Porter said. “It’s one way we’ll be able to keep extra money in the pockets of people who use the clinic.”
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Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.