Ozarks Profile - Gordon Kinne

What is your job?

Gordon Kinne is the president of Med-Pay Inc., 1650 E. Battlefield. His responsibilities, he said, are "management and sales."

Please tell us about your company.

Med-Pay, founded in 1981, was sold to Humana Inc. in 1995 and purchased back by Gordon Kinne in 1998. The company is a third-party administrator handling self-funded medical plans and also an insurance agency that provides a variety of employee and individual benefits.

What prepared you for work in your field?

Kinne earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Southwest Missouri State University. After working in the life insurance business for Penn Mutual he saw that people were upset with the cost of health insurance. "Therefore," he said, "I moved into the employee benefit area and saw in the late 70s that there was a void in Springfield for an organization specializing in self-funded medical plans; thus, the establishment of Med-Pay Inc."

Surveys indicate most consumers feel managed care is not meeting their health needs. What effect could this have on health systems?

"Managed care has had a tidal wave effect in our community," Kinne said. "Beginning in 1995, our community had virtually no managed care programs. Within a three-year period, approximately 90 percent of the work force was covered under employer-sponsored health insurance plans in some sort of managed care program." He added that low co-payment amounts created the opportunity for over-utilization, which "put a huge burden on the health care delivery system." In addition, he said, "Technology availability and the aging work force are all factors that have caused costs in health care to increase by double-digit rates for the last several years."

What trends do you see now in the medical insurance industry?

"The trend that we see is moving away from the managed care type of program by doing away with co-payments and going back to the original deductible co-insurance models that we had prior. ..."

What's the best part of your job or profession?

"Interacting with other business people in the Springfield community," Kinne said. "We get to visit with everyone from service industries like ourselves, professional industries, to manufacturing."

Can you tell us something about your personal life and family?

Kinne and his wife of 20 years, Laura, have two sons, Marshall, 17, and Mason, 14. Marshall, a junior, is a starter on the Glendale varsity soccer team; Mason, a freshman, started at tackle on the Glendale freshman football team.

How do you like to spend your leisure time?

"Going to the various activities that our children are involved in, from sports to choir to various clubs," Kinne said. "In the summer we like to play golf and go to the lake. During hunting season I like to hunt turkey, deer, ducks and upland game." Kinne also has a pilot's license and said he enjoys flying to see family members upstate, "or just flying over the beautiful Ozarks scenery."

by Frank Shipe