What led you to open Family Medical Walk-In Clinics?
My career has been in emergency medicine. In that environment, we obviously saw people in the emergency department with nonemergent needs. Appreciating the costs for and the acuity of the care, and also how it impacted the operation of the emergency department just demonstrated that there were opportunities outside the walls of the (ER) to provide that level of care for acute illness and injury that was not necessarily emergent care, but more urgent care.
How many employees do you have among the clinics' four locations?
Between full- and part-time employees, we have about 85. We have three full-time- equivalent physician (spots filled) by six different physicians. We have eight full-time-equivalent positions for nurse practitioners and (physician assistants). The rest are clinical personnel, nursing staff, X-ray staff, medical assistants (and) the front office, insurance verification, the administrative branch of the practice, billing and collections.
Tell us about your patient base.
Since Day 1, we've accepted all payer classifications - commercially insured patients, patients that are self-pay and don't have insurance, workers' compensation, Medicare and Medicaid. The doors have always been open for equal access to everybody.
You launched Affordable Care Solutions in October 2006. What is that program?
It is a membership program that we designed to provide (affordable access) to people who typically don't have commercial insurance. ... For $50 a month, people have access to $30 doctor visits. No matter how much the charges for their services, they pay $30. ... We've sold about 560 memberships. And we do have a (monthly) family rate of $200 maximum. We're starting to see some (interest) from employers who have high-deductible policies. Another program we have is a flat fee for self-pay patients. We added it in January. Those who don't have health insurance and aren't a member of the Affordable Care Solutions program pay $149 a visit (regardless of services).
Do you still provide appointment-based care, which was added in 2006?
We do. We have a board-certified internal medicine specialist (Dr. William Baird), who trained at the Mayo Clinic and was in private practice for several years and joined us four years ago. ... A general internal medicine specialist (provides) longitudinal care for high blood pressure or diabetes. Baird has some emergency medicine experience, but he also wanted to take care of people with longitudinal needs and utilize his training. Nearly 45 percent of our patients don't have primary care doctors (but instead of referring those out when they need ongoing care), he takes care of them. He rotates in Springfield, Nixa and Republic to provide the longitudinal care by appointment. We also have an orthopedic doctor who provides nonsurgical orthopedic appointments two half-days a week. Appointments ... make up less than 5 percent of our practice.
What are the key issues in health care?
Access, affordability, transparency and customer service. One of the biggest opportunities (I have) is to find ways to ... do things differently (and) make us more transparent. People know what they'll pay us, and they know what they'll get. Access (is addressed) by having four locations, being open seven days a week and on holidays. People can come before work, after work, in the evening. (The South Campbell) clinic is open 16 hours a day, six days a week, and 12 hours on Sunday. The other clinics are open 12 hours a day Monday through Friday, eight hours a day on Saturday and seven hours on Sunday.
How many patients do you expect to see in 2008?
Our volume has increased 15 percent this year. Some of that is because of the (membership program). Some of that's because of the self-pay rate. ... We will see, this year, more than 60,000 people, at an average of 5,000 people a month.
Tell us about your family.
I've been married to Debbie for 31 years. We've got five children: Kyle, 24; Jennifer, 22; Chris, 20; Kevin, 18, and Sean, 16.
Interview by Features Editor Maria Hoover.[[In-content Ad]]
April 7 was the official opening day for Mexican-Italian fusion restaurant Show Me Chuy after a soft launch that started March 31; marketing agency AdZen debuted; and the Almighty Sando Shop opened a brick-and-mortar space.
