Nurse Practitioner, Dan Tanner appeared before the Marshall County Commissioners last with to discuss the possibility of providing services to county employees.
Tanner is owner of Concierge Medicine of Marshall County in downtown Plymouth and offers a unique medical practice where his patients pay a flat fee of $40 monthly and can use his services as many times as necessary each and every month. He also offers 24/7 access.
Tanner told the commissioners he would like to be a medical clinic for county employees, saving on a number of medical issues that employees would typically use their insurance for. The more insurance claims the county has and the more costly those claims are increases the county premiums.
Tanner gave an example saying you go to the doctor for high blood pressure and while you are there you talk about your diabetes. The medical doctor can easily charge your insurance for a higher office visit, in the neighborhood of $250 while at his office that same visit would be included in $40 monthly fee.
Another example was a DOT physical. In a normal medical practice that cost would be over $200 and charged to the employees insurance. It would be covered under the $40 monthly fee.
Some county employees are saying the insurance co-pays are too high so they avoid routine medical check-up.
Commissioner Kevin Overmyer asked if all county employees would be required to us the services and Tanner said typically it will take up to 3 years to have the huge majority see the advantage and take the plunge.
Commissioner Stan Klotz said other counties in Indiana that are having success are thinking outside the box. He also said the county cannot afford to keep seeing 10% increased in health insurance costs each year.
Tanner said he is basically cutting out the middle man, the big insurance companies like United Health Care, Anthem and Cigna by offering a direct pay practice.
He asked the commissioners if he could present a Health Services Agreement for consideration and the commissioners agreed to look at it but did not commit to anything at this time. One of their issues would be finding the approximate $100,000 annual cost to cover the employees.
