The Montgomery County Commission has agreed to allow Nashville, Tenn.-based Care­Here to establish an outpatient clinic in downtown Montgom­ery that will serve the county’s 780 employees and their imme­diate families. It should be open by April.

The clinic will be available on a voluntary basis, meaning em­ployees can still go to another of­fice. But if even a portion of the county’s employees go to the clinic, it could save the county money, said Alicia Atcheson, public information officer for Montgomery County.

As an estimate, if 3,500 of the office and pharmacy visits made in the next year are done at the CareHere clinic, it could save the county about $143,000, she said. It would cost $708,000 if those 3,500 visits were made at other offices, but the cost through CareHere is projected to be about $565,000.

These numbers are based on a contract with CareHere that says the county will pay the company a management fee of $23 per employee per month. The money comes out of the county’s health-care trust fund.

Officials hope the clinic will benefit employees as much as it does the county.

“The intent is to bring the doc­tor to you on-site and avoid the wait you’re accustomed to at the doctor’s office,” county risk manager Scott Kramer told the County Commission on Tues­day.

That doctor will be a local physician who is contracted by CareHere to work at the clinic, which will be set up in a duplex at 300 S. Hull St.

The county bought the duplex in September 2007 for $413,469 with the long-term intention of using it to eventually expand the Montgomery County Deten­tion Facility. The other half of the duplex is being used for mis­cellaneous purposes such as storage.

At first, the CareHere clinic will be open for only 29 hours a week, but those hours could be expanded in the future. The clinic may also provide other services, such as X-rays, in the future.

At the clinic, employees will not pay co-pays for doctor visits or for prescription drugs, which will be generic medications. Prescriptions will be filled on-site.

That’s good news for Atche­son, who regularly finds herself at the doctor’s office dealing with her sinuses due to a range of allergies.

“It ruins half a day of work that you could be here,” Atche­son said.

Atcheson said the personal savings are attractive to her as an employee and as the county’s spokeswoman.

“Not only is it going to save me money, but it’s saving the county money, too,” she said.

The county hopes the conven­ience will encourage employees to seek medical attention so that potential health problems can be identified early before they become more serious issues.

CareHere has about 50 clinics in the Southeast, with Mont­gomery County now the only participating county. One city in Alabama, Fairfield in Jeffer­son County, also has a CareHere clinic.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser
Original Publication Date: January 11, 2008