Asheville City Council on Tuesday night approved a $20,000 raise for Dr. Paul Martin, who staffs a three-day-a-week health clinic for city of Asheville employees and their families. The raise brings Martin’s annual salary up to $120,000 a year for the service .
The city’s website says Martin is only available two days a week. More about the city’s health services:
Employee Health Services
The City of Asheville provides a walk-in clinic for all city employees. Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Registered Nurses who specialize in Occupational Health are on staff to evaluate any health-related issue at no charge to an employee.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, appointments can be made to see the physician for a charge of $5.
The Health Services office averages 600 employee visits per month. Examples of services provided include evaluation and care for work-related and personal injuries/illnesses, blood pressure monitoring, drug and alcohol testing, vaccinations, health education, referral to disease management programs, fitness for duty exams, TB skin tests, strep tests, urinalysis, glucose screening, medical surveillance of workplace hazards, early return-to-work program, hearing conservation program, and blood-borne pathogen program.
The action was part of City Council’s “consent agenda,” meaning there was no public discussion of the move.
In these days of lean budget times, and at a time when the city of Asheville is laying off workers, do you think spending $120,000 of taxpayers’ money on this service is required, needed?
12 Comments
Nate, good point. I was only calculating what our cost for him would hypothetically run' as he probably has to sign off on all visits.
One article says the service is available five days a week, the other says three day a week. Yes, the additional cost of RN's and administrative would only increase the amount per visit.
I believe the real answer would be to fix the broken health care system.
I am assuming that the clinic is taking place in the building on Biltmore Ave. next to the Wild Wing, was it leased or purchased?
Very expensive and very part-time. While it would be lovely to have nurses and a physician available for minor illnesses and routine BP checks, etc., don't the city employees have health insurance? If so, perhaps the "Employee Health Clinic" is duplicative and an un-necessary expense?
Bad teaser. It is hard to justify a raise of 20k for part time anything, but this blurp of an article gives more questions than answers. Yes,it is worth paying more taxes for city workers to have health care. It sounds like your questioning the quantity of hours spent and nothing else. What is the doctors track record? Do the city workers feel like they are seeing a qualified doctor that helps them and are able to work with his schedule? Is he a great doctor that is able to meet the needs of 600 patients in eight days a month? If so, pay the man. If not, come out and say that this is a straight waste of our money. Love the blog Jason and also not trying to pick sides, but this article has too much of a WLOS feel.
600 employee visits per month does not mean 600 visits to the doctor per month, as there are also (apparently) multiple Registered Nurses on staff who probably provide the vast majority of services.
$120,000 is not the only cost of running this clinic, it's just the doctor's salary. You can't calculate a "cost per visit" just by dividing 120,000 by 7200 total visits.
It works out to about $17 a visit, plus 36,000 back in for the $5 fee, but I don't know who collects the $5, the city or the physician. It may be a savings, as workers will be more inclined to get some simple screenings done, thus eliminating an expensive hospital visit.
It may also lead to a non necessary lifetime prescription of some "lifesaving" drug.
I mean, really, lay off 15 other folks and give this guy a 20% raise? Good grief.
Total dollar amount aside, what justifies the 20% increase in pay? Any other employees receive such a substantial raise?
Curious how much the City of Asheville is saving by having an in-house clinic for employees. My physician charges $85 for an office visit (not counting any tests that they might have to do). Multiply this by 600 (visits per month by employees) and the cost would be $51000 per month if they had to see a personal physician (that the City would have to pay via insurance). I suspect they get a good price on any testing too.
Not taking sides on this either, but I'm curious what the cost savings is. I suspect it is pretty significant.
There's not enough information here to say. What someone sees from a patient view of a medical clinic is a small fraction of what goes on behind the scenes, much of which is mandated by various regulations and laws. What else is he doing besides seeing patients? And is he providing his own malpractice insurance, or is the city picking that up? And did he get a raise, or did he take on new duties?
If it is $120K for a full-time physician, that's a good salary to pay. If it is for only 2 days a week, this is way, way out of line.
Looks like the City and County government officials are spending money like crazy. They must also be some of the same local beer-bellied drunks who are spending their time voting in the "Beer City USA" fake online poll.
That's Asheville!
A big argument FOR the medical services is that healthy employees (ones that have access to a doctor) are better workers and cost less in medical expenses in the long run.
I'm not taking sides, just saying.