Clinic Saves Lakeland $1.1 Million in Health Insurance Costs

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The city is saving more than $1 million a year in health insurance claims because of its "preventative medicine" wellness clinic, Lakeland's risk manager says.

Director of Risk Management Karen Lukaub said clinics cost more money in the beginning, but save more as time goes on by having healthier employees.

Of the city's 2,100 full-time workers, 1,840 have health insurance through the city's self-insurance program. In 2008, 1,239 workers used the city clinic. Insurance claims for those workers averaged $929 less than the average yearly claim of $5,492 per year filed by a typical city worker.

The savings: $1.1 million.

The 601 insured workers who didn't use the clinic made claims averaging $1,448 more than the $5,492 average. That is $870,000 the city would not have had to spend if those workers went to the clinic.

Any worker using the North Lake Parker Avenue clinic must go through a comprehensive assessment that includes testing for blood sugar and cholesterol, then a "body mass" evaluaton, which has everything to do with fat.

Dr. Miguel Eisen, who staffs the clinic along with medical assistant Jennifer Lubbs, said, in initial testing, bad body mass numbers are the biggest threat to good health.

The clinic opened two years ago and one of the early customers was Parks and Recreation worker James "Cosmo" McHenry, then 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 238 pounds.

"I was so tired from working outside all day that when I got home I couldn't move," he said. "I'd just lay around and eat."

McHenry said Eisen told him he was cultivating serious health problems.

"He pretty much called me a fat ... ," McHenry said.

The evaluation got McHenry off the couch.

He started a "Biggest Loser" contest with 27 other city workers, mostly from Parks and Recreation. The entry fee was $20 and fines were levied against people who gained weight at the weekly weigh in.

In six months, McHenry dropped 91 pounds and kept it off. He traded the chips and pretzels for bike rides and runs around Lake Hollingsworth.

McHenry said he loves the clinic and can't understand why all the city employees don't use it.

"The change in Cosmo is incredible," said Bill Tinsley, director of Park's and Recreations.

McHenry has become a "health nut" to the point of being a borderline nuisance, Tinsley said with a laugh.

He said the city's wellness clinic has raised health awareness in city workers.

The clinic is open to any city worker in the health plan, with permission from a supervisor.

The city decided to hire a private company to staff and maintain the clinic. Georgia based HealthSTAT is paid $361,000 from the city's $18 million health plan.

Lukhaub said HealthSTAT is necessary because the city shouldn't be in the position of maintaining city workers' medical records.

The clinic is used for a variety of reasons by workers, who don't pay any co-pay to see Eisen.

Workers coming down with a cold or the flu and with minor cuts or illnesses visit, and Eisen coordinates worker health care with outside doctors.

Eisen has seen most maladies known to humanity. He has practiced at Polk General Hospital, which closed in 1995, the Polk County Health Department and as a surgeon in the U.S. Army.

"I believe we provide good service here," he said.

Lukhaub said she believes wellness clinic are the way of the future, the way to cut health costs for governments and private business. She said private businesses should band together to share the cost of a clinic.

"This doesn't replace (outside) doctors," she said. "But it helps employees get healthy."

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