Scheduling a doctor's visit around a full-time job schedule can be a major inconvenience. In rural parts of the state, many have to take the whole day off to take the time to travel to the office and wait to be seen by a doctor.
Brown County residents are accustomed to driving to Bloomington or Columbus for appointments. But a clinic owned by the school corporation gives people another option.
The goal is to make it easier for teachers and staff to get medical care, but the clinic has become popular with members of the community as well.
Brown Co. Using 'Direct Primary Care' To Expand Health Options
The Brown County Community Health and Wellness Center used be a storage facility. It now has two exam rooms, and a small waiting area
It fills a big need for the community. And if you're a monthly member you can drop by as often as you please.
"We call it a gym membership model," says Brown County Schools Superintendent Laura Hammack. "So pretty much you pay once a month and that gives you access to all services the clinic provides."
Full-time Brown County Schools employees don't have to pay anything to visit the clinic. For members of the community, it's about $65 a month.
The clinic is a partnership between the school system and Wellness for Life, a company based out of Terre Haute that is embracing this subscription-based model of health care.
It's known as direct primary care; patients pay a flat rate for care, no matter how much they use the services.
Dr. Andrew Hector has been practicing direct primary care in Greenwood for several years. He says the biggest advantage is the amount of time doctors get to spend with their patients.
"The average physician will have two or three thousand patients," Hector says. "In direct primary care (it) will be certainly under a thousand patients, no question about it."
Visitors to the Brown County clinic are already touting its success.
"Its not like going to a GP, where you are in and out, they're looking at a computer and not really talking to you," says Helmsberg Elementary Principal Kelli Bruner. "They take the time here to really talk with you."
Bruner says she saves time by coming here instead of her regular doctor's office. And she says a lot of the staff in her building are taking advantage, as well.
"To them also they aren't taking a day off work, they are not having to write lesson plans, which is huge," Bruner says. "They aren't spending their evening going to the doctor and sitting in the doctors office."
In addition to school employees, about 65 residents are signed up for the clinic. Hammack says they don't know the exact number of treatment visits, but they've gotten more traffic than they ever expected in the four months since the clinic opened.
Clinic Offers Wide Range Of Health Services
The clinic serves all the functions of a regular doctor's office and it also provides a large selection of prescription drugs. That's all built into the monthly fee.
If there's a situation the clinic doctor can't treat, she refers the patient to a hospital or a specialist.
For Bruner, it's the clinic's wellness plans that excite her most.
She comes in and uses the InBody machine every couple of weeks. It spits out information about a patient's weight, muscle mass and how much fat they have around their vital organs.
"After I saw that paper [I thought], oh wow OK, I need to do something here," Bruner says. And they were wonderful. They talked to me about all the numbers and they talked to me about having a challenge, and I thought, I am up for a challenge and I need to get healthy."
And it's working. Bruner says she's lost fifteen pounds since she started coming to the clinic a few months ago.
Hammack says the goal of the clinic, first and foremost, is to provide quality care to residents in the county. But it's also saving the district money. Hammack didn't specify how much, but says it's significant.
The direct care model is particularly useful in rural areas where there aren't as many healthcare options.
Some local Brown County businesses have signed up all their full time employees to get access to care through the clinic.
Right now the clinic is only open two days a week, but as more people join, Hammack says the clinic will expand its service hours.
"We're really trying to get to that five day a week opening," Hammack says.
