The Journal Record
Care ATC Launches Nationwide Expansion
TULSA – A young operator of employer on-site health clinics has launched a nationwide expansion campaign, targeting $100 million revenue within five years. Care ATC now oversees 32 clinics in six states from its Tulsa headquarters. That growth allowed the six-year-old firm to annually double its size over the last three years. With QuikTrip and another unnamed Tulsa company now signed on, Care ATC expects to triple its revenue this year to $9 million.
“In every case when we’ve had a client in operation for three years or more, we’ve actually reduced a company’s health care costs before what it paid in its initial year,” said Chief Operating Officer Michael McAfee. “We’ve been able to take and reverse that inflationary cost that everyone experiences in health care.”
Care ATC hired Rex Public Relations of Tulsa and the Tatum Group of Chicago to map out its growth strategy. McAfee said that effort would cost $5 million to $10 million, depending on its implementation speed.
The company also recruited 20-year industry veteran David Kanzler from Tatum to serve as chief executive under founder and chairman Ron Woods of Muskogee. McAfee said Kanzler would take the reins within a couple of weeks, implementing a strategy to grow Care ATC to 200 on-site clinics within the next five years.
That reflects a resurgent national trend experimented with in the 1970s, only to fade under cost-effectiveness concerns. With annual health-care inflation rising at double-digit rates this decade, the New York Times reported that more than 100 of the nation’s largest employers have launched on-site clinics or wellness services, with that number expected to top 250 by the end of the year. David Beech, a health care consultant with Watson Wyatt, said such clinics may save firms with 2,000 employees up to $2 million per year in lower expenses and improved productivity.
Care ATC targets employers of 200 to 5,000. Like most physician offices, its clinics serve three areas: acute care, chronic care and wellness management. Since they operate under Care ATC, those employees, spouses and dependants who use the clinics face no co-payments or fees of any kind – not even for lab work. The clinics even dispense some medication free.
“We kind of use acute care to draw them in,” said Medical Director James H. Baker, a Care ATC physician who still treats patients when he’s not recruiting physicians or explaining the company strategy to prospective clients. “We like to see the kids, but what we really like to see is the 40- to 50-year-old man who does not go to see the doctor on a regular basis.”
That helps physicians identify warning signs at earlier stages, potentially preventing more serious illnesses, lost work time and expensive treatments. By educating patients on wellness concerns, the clinics help workers improve productivity while reducing stress factors and absenteeism.
“Most people wait until the seriousness of the issue outweighs the hassle of going to see the doctor,” said McAfee. “If we can catch that three-year increase in a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level in a 42-year-old male so that he does not have prostate cancer in the future, then that’s a win for us.”
Bridging that physician-visit reluctance also provides a win for employers. While patient files remain confidential, Baker said Care ATC’s personnel assessment system provides overall corporate health-risk management information for each employer. This allows Care ATC to customize wellness programs to help lower a client’s health care costs.
‘It brings back the joy into medicine’
To succeed, the Tulsa company seeks 80-percent employee participation at its clinics. McAfee said only four clinics have failed to meet that level.
“It’s just a lot of fun to watch people enjoying their health,” said Baker. “If you give them the education, people are smart enough to latch on to that.”
The other major reason involves corporate structure. Since Care ATC covers all patient costs and works with its client’s existing insurers, its physicians face no restrictions on what they diagnose and treat, other than employee approval. McAfee said that removes about 15 levels of middleman reviews.
“It brings the joy back into medicine,” said Baker.
“I saw 29 people walk through the door in a four-hour period of time for a weight clinic,” he said of one clinic visit this month in Muskogee, where Care ATC was born.He said it excited him, seeing and hearing how improved health had changed patient lives.
“In a normal clinic setting, they don’t do that,” Baker said. “I shook hands and had interaction with every one of them.”
Setting up a clinic requires a company to prepare about three 10-foot by 10-foot rooms, which would serve as a waiting room, examination room and doctor-nurse supply room. In what it considers a turnkey installation, Care ATC then outfits the offices with computers, examination beds and supplies. McAfee said its supplier arrangements allow Care ATC to accomplish that for less than $10,000 per office. It also supplies the medical staff.
The cost of the service depends on the employer’s size. A company with 250 to 300 workers would probably require eight physician hours each week split in two half-day sessions, at a monthly cost of $15,000. Employers of 1,000 or more would require a full-time physician.
That amount of time is all that’s required to provide regular employee checkups, treating their immediate needs while monitoring and encouraging their wellness progress. Starting with the most serious demands, Baker said the Care ATC physicians contact each employee to gain their care approval and administer their cases.
“This is in-your-face preventive medicine,” he said.
He recently manned a booth at an American College of Physicians annual session in San Diego, all to preach to prospective employees of his firm’s competitive rates and advantageous working environment.
“It’s just unbelievable how, by taking down the barriers of health care, you can change a person’s life,” he said.
Cherry-picking clients
At this stage, McAfee said Care ATC has the luxury to cherry-pick which clients it accepts, basing its decision on the employer’s willingness to support wellness programs.
“If a company doesn’t get it, they almost have to solicit us, because it’s almost not worth the additional work to make it successful,” he said.
Care ATC now employs a staff of 17 physicians. Current plans could expand Care ATC services from the Brownsville, Texas, region to Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio – which could support 23 physician additions. Some of these could involve multiple clinics for one employer. QuikTrip, for example, may involve establishing up to 10 clinics across its market area.
Baker said Care ATC is considering plans to offer vaccinations and other potential disease outbreak strategies. But its business model remains focused on acute care, with all critical care needs referred to medical specialists.
“In the near future, Care ATC is not going to do brain surgery,” McAfee said. “We’re not going to deliver babies. It’s not in our model at the moment.”