Grand Prairie health clinic plan draws questions from city council

by Kirk Dickey of Grand Prairie TODAY

City Council members will take a closer look at the city's plans for an employee medical clinic.

The clinic, tentatively scheduled for opening in December of this year, met with some resistance from council members, who thought the city might be overreaching. City Manager Tom Hart, however, argued that the clinic was a progressive solution to the city's fastest growing expenditure - healthcare.

The clinic, as presented at a city council briefing session, would be self-administered, with its own staff in a downtown location, yet to be purchased. The clinic's operational costs were estimated at $380,000 annually.

Lisa Norris, the city's human resources director, said the cost would be outweighed by the benefits to the employees who use the service, although she hesitated to put a dollar figure on the clinic's proposed savings. She did, however, point to other cities which have seen savings with similar programs. Odessa saw a 10.3 percent savings in its healthcare costs. Garland and Mesquite also have employee clinics.

“We know the dollar savings will be there,” Norris said. “That has been shown. We were focused on the wellness (aspect).”

The savings, she said, would be in education and preventative care.

Hart agreed, saying that the clinic will allow the city to offer a lower co-pay. He said that many times employees are not going to the doctor because they do not want to pay a higher co-pay, which ends up costing the city in the long run.

“The dollar is the last thing I am looking at,” he said. “It was getting people to the doctor. Getting them back on the job. Getting them healthy and not spreading whatever they have to multiple people.”

He said it is a productivity issue.

Hart said that the city would like to contract with Parkland or another vendor for X-rays, lab tests, etc., which would not be part of the basic clinic the city wants to open.

But council members said they wanted to see more concrete numbers and predictions of savings before allowing the city to progress with the project, which some said they had not heard of before.

“This is all brand new to me,” Councilman Tony Shotwell said, arguing that the city might be trying too hard to do in the public sector what is available in the private sector. “I think this is a great big gigantic step.

“I think it's going way too fast.”

Councilman Rick Sala said that an early presentation of the project was given in the council's budget workshop earlier in the year, but he too would like to see some better numbers.

And Councilman Lee Herring also wanted to make sure the city knew what it was doing.

The most vocal cynic regarding the program was Councilman Ron Jensen, who said he thought the program was moving faster than it should.

“It looks like we are going to hire somebody. I guarantee you right now, that if I didn't say anything, that person would be hired,” he said.

Hart replied, nodding his head, “We were moving forward.”

Norris explained in her presentation that the city planned to recruit a clinic manager in the next couple of months, then work with the city's economic development department on securing a building downtown or in another suitable location and then begin staffing in August. Norris's timeline included getting the clinic operational and marketing it to employees in September and November, before opening in December.

“The staff has been working for about a year and I don't think $400,000 is a lot of money when we are talking about curbing the biggest cost escalator we've got,” Hart told the council.

He said the city would organize a work session to discuss the project in greater detail. He said that once the council understood the program better, they would likely agree the clinic is the way to go.

“I'm sure once you see it, you are going to like what we are doing,” Hart said.