January 15, 2014 at 4:28 p.m.
Aspirus School District of Rhinelander clinic officially open
Aspirus School District of Rhinelander clinic officially open
The district held an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday for the clinic, which opened on Jan. 8.
"This on-site clinic will reduce absenteeism, reduce school district insurance costs, enhance productivity of the school district employees and provide long-term cost savings," the district said in a press release announcing the open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony. "A provider will be on-site for 12 hours per week. The clinic will be located at Rhinelander High School but it is open to all (school district) employees and their dependents district wide with WPS insurance. Employees will have the option of (visiting) the on-site clinic before and after work hours which should reduce the need to call a substitute in order to visit the doctor or walk-in clinic during the day. Employees would be able to set up appointments online 24/7."
The clinic is not available to students or the general public.
One of the providers who will be working at the clinic is board certified family nurse practitioner Jolene Kopplin. Kopplin said the new clinic will help staff members who are dealing with a variety of ailments.
"We're going to be offering a wide variety of services from care when you're ill - sore throats, runny noses and coughs - to managing blood pressure and diabetes and helping people get well," Kopplin said.
"We will cover most common illnesses and conditions, much like you would see a regular doctor at a clinic for. If anyone has a major health concern like chest pain or they think they're having a stroke, they should certainly go to the nearest emergency room."
The clinic will also be able to help staff deal with pre-existing conditions.
"We'll definitely be able to provide the appointments that people need to manage things like high blood pressure and diabetes and refill their medications. We will also be able to do simple lab work that we'll send over to the main clinic to monitor those conditions, so it will provide really easy and convenient access to care for managing health problems," Kopplin said.
The clinic is located at doors 7 and 8 of the high school. Those doors are the only access point for the clinic.
"This clinic is completely separate from the high school. It's not any part of the regular school function. It's completely separate entity. People even have to enter through a separate entrance," Kopplin said.
"We use a computer system and the only people that have access to it are clinic employees that work here. We go through a lot of security to get into those systems and into those charts, certainly no one else has access to those."
Board of Education President Ron Counter said he and the board are very excited to see the clinic open.
"The Board of Education is very excited, not only for the potential dollars we can save in health care costs, but for the health of all of our employees and their families," he said.
The school board agreed to partner with Aspirus to open the clinic after learning that the district had been able to negotiate a 6.36 percent decrease in the cost of its insurance plan for the 2013-'14 school year. That decrease will save the district approximately $900,000. The administration proposed using $51,000 of that money to open the clinic. The board also authorized spending an additional $98,000 from those savings to remodel part of the high school so that the clinic has the space it needs.
According to Superintendent Kelli Jacobi, the clinic will pay for itself in the long run. If it doesn't, the contract with Aspirus would call for the clinic to reimburse the district the difference.
"If we're looking at an office visit being between $150 and $200 per visit when you go to the doctor - it's going to be in that range for the most part - the nurse practitioner can see four patients in an hour and we're paying $85 per hour - we're not paying based on a per visit basis, we're buying the time - so there should be savings in our health insurance," Jacobi said in August.
"(Aspirus) will be able to calculate that and if we haven't saved that much in our insurance, then Aspirus is willing to make up the difference. We're not going to be at a loss for this. They're willing to step in to make sure we've gotten that savings with our insurance. That will help with our insurance rates because we want to make sure they stabilize. We had very good news this year with our insurance rates. We want to continue that."
According to Director of Business Services Marta Kwiatkowski, the clinic will help the district continue to rein in insurance costs while also helping to save money spent on substitutes by reducing employee absenteeism.
"By having a clinic on-site, it will help us control our insurance costs and, in the long-term, decrease that cost, and it will help us reduce the number of employees who have to be absent from work," Kwiatkowski said in August.
"Having an on-site clinic is a long-term investment in your health care."
The clinic's hours of operation will be:
Mondays and Wednesdays from 3 to 6:30 p.m.
Fridays from 3 to 5 p.m.
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 8 a.m.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at marcus@rivernewson line.com.
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