By Katie Harris
news@tricitiesbusinessnews.com
A Seattle-based flat-rate health care provider is hoping to open a new location in the Tri-Cities in 2011.
Qliance, a physician-owned, primary care provider operating outside the insurance system, started three years ago and has more than 3,500 patients that go to clinics in downtown Seattle, Kent Station and Mercer Island.
Qliance patients treat it much like a health club, said Chapin Henry, vice president of business development for Qliance. Patients need no health insurance to join, but instead pay an average of $65 a month for comprehensive primary, preventive and wellness care, he said. Patients make no commitment and can quit their membership at any time.
Qliance is run with the philosophy of a medical home, where patients have increased access to their doctors. Physicians are available seven days a week at the clinic, and 24 hours a day through phone and email. Appointments are 30 minutes or longer, because a doctor only sees 10 to 12 of his 800 patients each day, Henry said. The clinic handles health issues like urgent care, chronic diseases, x-rays and blood draws and dispenses some prescriptions on site.
Henry held informational meetings in June and July at Richland Public Library and invited medical professionals, insurance agents and the public to attend. At the meetings, Henry said the Tri-Cities clinic needs two doctors and 1,250 patients before it can open.
To reserve a spot, those interested can pay a deposit worth three monthly fees, regardless of whether they have health insurance, or their employers can pay it for them.
Ideally, the first two doctors would be from the Tri-Cities area, and two more would be added later.
“We want to start the ball rolling, and then grow organically,” Henry said.
Henry has been working to bring Qliance to the Tri-Cities with the help of Robert Anderson, owner of Benefit Strategies, LLC, a health insurance agency in Kennewick.
Anderson said he has sent some of his clients to Qliance clinics in Seattle, and he thinks a new clinic would be supported in the Tri-Cities area.
“It’s just such a simple program and a good system,” Anderson said. “I’m just a huge fan of it. I really think it’ll make a huge impact in our community.”
Henry said patients who receive care from a primary care physician, such as Qliance’s, experience 33 percent lower health care costs and 19 percent lower mortality rates.
The clinic is able to reduce paperwork and overhead costs because it does not bill insurance companies, Henry said. It saves time and money for the patients because more health issues are addressed by the primary care doctor, not by expensive specialists.
Emergency room visits drop by an average of 33 percent and patients make an average of 23 percent fewer hospital visits with Qliance, because doctors do more preventive and wellness care, he said.
Most people use primary care only for their annual physical exam, Henry said, when primary care providers can and should tackle many other health issues.
But health insurance should be reserved for unpredictable, rare or unusual health needs, he said, not for basic health care.
“The problem is,” Henry said, “the primary care system that we have now over the last 30 years evolved to one that’s extremely broken.”
Henry said he blamed the health care crisis on the unsustainable current system, not insurance companies or doctors. When claims come in, carriers have no other choice but to increase their premiums, and doctors are locked in a productivity-based system that forces them to refer patients to more expensive specialists, Henry said.
“Wellness doesn’t happen anymore,” he said. “It’s about how many (patients) you can see in one day.”
Henry said one woman went to her primary care doctor with an earwax problem and ended up wasting five hours and $400 to have her ears cleaned by a specialist.
“We would’ve cleaned her ears,” he said. “It’s not good to go elsewhere when we can take care of it. … 85 percent of the cases that are referred can be solved in a 10 by 10 room with your doctor today.”
Half of medical school graduates used to become primary care doctors, and now that number has dropped to 14 percent, Henry said.
“It is a happier environment (at Qliance),” Henry said. “That’s what they went to medical school for.”
Qliance makes specialist referrals, if necessary, and provides hospital care coordination, so that the primary care doctor stays involved in his patient’s needs.
If a patient is referred to a specialist or admitted to a hospital, he pays for that separately. It is not covered through the monthly fee. Most patients still have an insurance plan, whether on their own or through their employers, but 15 percent choose to remain uninsured.
Henry offered a number of plan options for Tri-Cities employers who want their employees to join the clinic when it opens.
The employer could pay a percentage of or the total monthly fees for all of its employees, or it could offer a monthly allowance of $80 to $180 and introduce Qliance as one of many health care options. The employer could also buy a low-cost high deductible plan and Qliance, without funding the deductible, or employers could buy a low-cost high deductible plan and Qliance, funding the deductible through a Health Reimbursement Account.
Health insurance brokers, like Anderson, will have the opportunity to sell Qliance memberships to their clients, Anderson said. The agents could then charge a fee for referral, but should not expect what they usually collect from insurance companies, Anderson said.
“Is it more important to line your pocket, or is it more important to take care of your client?” he said. “It definitely takes a bite into your revenue. It’s more important … to take care of the client, because I really do believe what goes around comes around.”
Anderson said he set up a secured trust account at Washington Trust Bank so that those interested in joining the clinic can prepay three months’ fees and reserve their spots. If they decide against Qliance later, they will receive a full refund, he said.
Anderson is recruiting Tri-Citians now, but only requires them to complete a registration form. He said he will ask everyone to pay the deposit to ensure their membership once the clinic’s opening date has been set.
Only a handful have paid the deposit, Anderson said, but about 600 people have turned in registration forms. Many of the forms were submitted by employers, who hope to have their entire staff use Qliance.
“It’s only been me,” Anderson said. “I’m just using word of mouth, trying to get this up and going.”
For more information or to reserve a place, call Anderson at 521-1881 or email info@benefit-strategies.com.
For more information about Qliance, visit www.qliance.com.
