Another Onsite Clinic
The school district and the city joined together to create an onsite clinic with its own pharmacy in Mesquite, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). Estimate: The clinic is saving the school district $1 million a year. There have been no overall cost increases in health insurance costs in three years.
Can the clinic offer its services to nonemployees? No.
Can doctors set up a similar clinic? No.
As previously explained at this blog, here’s a health reform idea for Congress: Change those “noes” to “yeses.”
Agree with you, John. The question is: where are the doctors on this? Why aren’t they demanding the freedom to compete in the marketplace.
Stephen, doctors are there own worst advocates. It’s a job best assumed by nondoctors.
Large employers increasingly provide on-site clinics as an employee benefit. But I do not believe it would require one large employer, such as a school district, for the concept to work. I wonder why more doctors don’t open small clinics in large office parks (away from hospitals or medical complexes) to attract the business of office workers. I suspect part of the reason has to do with zoning. Medical zoning regulations are far different than retail or office zoning.
Are you seriously sayingthat insurance rates/premiums have not increased in three years??? Get real.
As to the idea of community clinics…. I’m all forthat. Of course it would be neccessary for the doctors at these clinics to be in the network of insurance that is used by the surrounding buisnesses, otherwise those workers could not use these clinics because insurance dictates what doctors a person can and cannot see. If the clinic isn’t in the insurance program then opening a clinic is pointless. If you are insured you cannot choose which doctor you want but can only choose from the few doctors allowed by insurance.
I’ve always wondered why the notion of a community clinic never has included the doctor who practices locally.
After thinking about it for a while I concluded the lefties who use terms like “community clinics” don’t like the one-on-one relationship of a private practice or don’t even know that such things exist because they’ve never experienced it.
Clinics are the only way to go. Therefore, only clinics deserve to be counted.
Generally medical offices can be set up in many communities in R 5 on up (including all commercial application zoning). So this is not an impedment to medical care.
Generally a school district has a healthy population and does not support elderly, and disabled people in the employee population. Thus they could save a substantial amount of costs which would be borne by insurance. Also the convience of the medical care on site helps to increase preventive and early intervention; again decreasing the costs of medical care.
One other reason we do not see free standing clinics is the malpractice costs. In this specific setting they should be low. But Tort Reform is needed badly.
Medical care is currently controlled indirectly by Medicare, and the insurance companies by their rate setting policies.