buisness profile: bcs micare clinic HOW IT WORKS Under traditional insurance, the employer pays a premium to the insurance company, which keeps the full amount whether employees use it or not. Under self-insurance, the company keeps whatever isn’t used. BCS handles self-insurance by setting aside enough premiums in an interest-bearing escrow account to cover three months’ worth of employee health care. BCS receives a cumulative bill from a third-party administrator in Billings, Mont., for the care, equipment, and consumables that BCS employees use. (BCS knows what it’s paying for, but which employee or family member used which products and services remains confidential between the patient and the third-party administrator.) BCS pays the claim, but money not used stays in the account, which builds up. As BCS builds more than three months’ reserve, they can reduce their own set-aside premiums. “We’re down to $1,000 a month per employee (going into the setaside account), and we have received exceptional care for the money,” Thomas said. “Our claims, or set-
aside, has reduced by $300 a month per employee over the last three or four years. Under the traditional plan, we were paying quite a bit more, and didn’t have the same standard of care.” To participate, BCS employees pay $71.50 a month to participate in the plan that covers their entire
BCS recouped initial costs in the first year, “…Just in savings we realized from our people using miCare rather than the ER or other clinics.” – Sheryl Hershey, BCS human resources
family. It’s optional, but Hershey pointed out that employees haven’t found anything close to their pay-in with comparable care. “There are a lot of self-insured companies, usually with stop-loss riders,” Hershey said. “You won’t find anything else like ours for family healthcare coverage.”
Sheryl Hershey (center), when she was full-time HR manager at BCS, facilitated the creation of the miCare Clinic with the Hecht Group, working with Tricia Hecht-Glad (left) and her father, founder Dan Hecht. (Staff Photo)
The Clinic MiCare is located less than a block from a BCS facility on West Orchard Drive, and 1.8 miles from BCS’s main Squalicum waterfront facility. A nurse practitioner, three medical assistants, and one doctor staff the clinic during specified, half-day hours three days a week, all part-time, all paid by the hour. The new store-front clinic comprises two exam rooms, a lab, an office for the doctor, a supply room, a reception area, and a pharmacy cabinet that supplies most common prescriptions (no narcotics). At miCare, the doctor can fill a prescription on-site, immediately, without sending the employee to a pharmacy. “We carry 100 prescriptions, all of them free to employees and families,” Hershey said. BCS purchases those prescriptions at the very lowest cost. “It’s all primary care. Physicals, family well-care, minor procedures like stitches, gynecological check-ups, sports physicals.” She said that the company’s primary-care physician sees employees for conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or weight issues. “If your wrist is bothering you, or you have a growth on your back that needs removing – anything you’d go to a family doctor for – miCare provides,” Hershey said. “This is the family doctor for our employees and families. If more is needed, employees still have their full insurance, so they can go to specialists.”
THE CATALYST Before the miCare clinic came about, the diversity of BCS employees made it difficult for many among them to get a doctor when they needed it. “We have a large contingent of employees who speak Spanish as a first language,” Hershey explained. “It was hard to find a primary-care doctor who speaks Spanish. They’d wait until it became an emergency, then go to 14 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM