DES MOINES, IOWA — Leaders of a new east-side Des Moines clinic say they can help patients stay healthy while saving money for the insurance company that owns the place.
The Des Moines Register reports that the CareMore clinic is the most extensive Iowa example of a new health care model: Health insurance companies that pay medical bills also employ the doctors, nurses and other professionals who provide the care.
The clinic is part of a controversial shift in Iowa’s Medicaid program. The state last year hired three national companies to run the $4 billion program, which insures more than 500,000 poor or disabled Iowans. The clinic is owned by the corporate parent of one of those three companies, Amerigroup.
Skeptics worry the arrangement could lead the medical staff to skimp on treatment to save Amerigroup money.
Clinic leaders say the fear is unfounded. They say the operation focuses on patients who otherwise would not regularly visit a clinic, and who are likely to have chronic health problems that could lead to expensive hospitalizations. “Our patients are difficult to get engaged with, to get in the door, but once they come in here, they love us,” said Ethel Condon, an internal medicine physician who leads the staff. “It’s about preventing those problems that could cause catastrophes five or seven years from now.”
The clinic opened April 1 in a commercial area northeast of Grand View University, near some of central Iowa’s poorest neighborhoods. Its neighbors include a Goodyear tire shop and a B-Bop’s hamburger stand. The building used to house a clinic run by UnityPoint, one of the Des Moines area’s two dominant hospital and clinic systems.
The new clinic has served about 400 patients, all of whom are Medicaid recipients who receive coverage through Amerigroup. One of them is Robert Bruns of Colfax, whom clinic leaders hold up as a success story.
