Citing concerns about the cost, a state board Friday rejected -- for the time being -- a proposal to help fund a clinic that would be operated by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for state employees near the Capitol.
Instead, the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board, which governs the health plans for state and public school employees, voted unanimously to seek bids from companies and other health care organizations to see whether state employees could get a better deal.
Bob Boyd, a board member and internal employee benefits consultant to Windstream Communications in Little Rock, said taking competitive bids is "standard operating procedure" at his company and others.
"I'm not sure what's unusual or what's special about this that we cease looking at alternatives," Boyd said.
The board also said it was receptive to opening the clinic with UAMS if it could be done without using money from the state employees' health plans to support the clinic's startup and operating costs.
R.T. Fendley, chief strategy officer for UAMS Medical Center, said in a phone interview after the meeting that he doubted the university could provide specialized services to state employees unless the health plans shared in the clinic's cost.
"We would place a clinic there only because they wanted to have a clinic there on the Capitol mall," he said. "If we're just planting clinics, we would probably spend our money elsewhere."
He said he would need to know the details of the board's solicitation to say whether the university would respond.
Under a preliminary proposal presented to the board last month by UAMS, the health plans would have paid about $1.2 million annually -- about 80 percent of the clinic's total cost. About half of the health plans' contribution was expected to come from billed charges for employees' doctor visits.
In return, state employees would get designated parking and a guarantee of speedy access to a doctor.
The clinic would also provide office space for American Health Holding, which provides case management for state and public school employees with large medical bills, and ComPsyche, which runs the employee assistance program.
By providing employees more convenient access to doctors and preventive health screenings, the clinic would reduce expenses to the health plans in the long run and reduce the time state employees are absent because of illnesses, said Bob Alexander, director of the Department of Finance and Administration Employee Benefits Division,.
At a meeting last month, board member Shelby McCook questioned whether money from the plans could legally be spent to support a clinic, and whether doing so would give UAMS an unfair advantage against other health care providers.
On Friday, he said he wanted to explore whether another organization could offer to operate a clinic at no cost to the plans.
As part of the vote to solicit bids, the insurance board agreed to rescind its request last month for opinions from the state attorney general's office and Legislative Audit Division on whether money from the health plans could be spent on a clinic.
McCook urged fellow board members Friday to "look at any potential conflicts of interest you might have, to examine yourself, your morals, your ethics and your intentions" and act in the best interest of the health plans.
After the meeting, he said he didn't know of any board members with conflicts.
"I just want them to seriously consider what we do with the trust funds," McCook said.
Metro on 12/06/2014