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Steiner Electric Case Study

A 100-year-old, family-owned electrical supply distribution company in Illinois, with over 400 employees and a self-funded health insurance plan, asked ImagineMD to be its direct primary care provider. The company had two main objectives:

  • Improve Quality of Care

  • • One-on-one time with personal primary care doctor
  • • Same or next-day appointments
  • • Improve chronic care treatment
  • • Provide preventative care, health coaching

  • Reduce Overall Cost of Care

  • • Flat monthly fee, no copays or deductibles
  • • Same or next-day appointments
  • • Discounted diagnostic lab and imaging services
  • • Reduce unnecessary
    hospital/ER/specialist costs
  • •Make specialist referrals that deliver improved value

What is ImagineMD Direct Primary Care?

It’s personal, preventative, high-quality healthcare provided by physicians whom employers pay directly. It’s healthcare that you sponsor to offer your employees comprehensive, efficient and accessible care outside a network. No copays, no waiting, 24/7 primary care.

What is self-funded Insurance?

When a company self-funds its health insurance plan, it sets aside money to pay the costs of its employees’ health-care itself. It also typically pays an in-surance company for stop-loss insurance, which limits how much that employer pays in any one month or for any single catastrophic health occurrence. Employers can “rent” a network of physicians for specialty care or eliminate the network entirely. Employers pay the costs of their employees’ healthcare, leaving money not spent in the employer’s and employee’s pockets in the form of reduced payroll deductions.

So far, so great.

Cost and care results are practically immediate. In just over 90 days, ImagineMD has more than paid for itself by redirecting care to high- value, appropriately priced physicians, facilities and medications. In Rx alone, there has been $25,000 in savings per month.

  • Improved Care

  • ImagineMD physicians:
  • • Completed onboarding calls for all employees who chose the ImagineMD plan
  • • Saw 56% of all plan members for first appointments
  • • Scheduled 74% of all plan members for their first appointments
  • • Connected a patient, with a history of lifelong depression who had always refused to seek treatment, to a therapist
  • •Treated three patients with chronic pain who are now living pain-free  after many years
  • •Helped a patient with severe osteo-arthritis achieve enough weight loss to be able to delay knee replacement
  • • Provided advice to a pediatric patient with eczema that will decrease the need for expensive Rx

  • Cost Savings

  • ImagineMD was able to:
  • • Save the company $25,000 a month on prescriptions alone
  • • Facilitate direct surgery, contracting into a bundled case rate for a cost of $11,500 vs $45,000
  • • Avoid four costly ER/Urgent Care visits

*Taber, J.M., Leyva, B. & Persoskie, A. Why do People Avoid Medical Care? A Qualitative Study Using National Data. J GEN INTERN MED 30, 290-297 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-014-3089-1

Employers pay more for employees who avoid care.

Many employees with status-quo healthcare plans avoid doctor visits for a variety of reasons. But avoiding necessary doctor visits can lead to delayed diagnoses and higher claims.* The improved access afforded by ImagineMD’s model leads to earlier diagnosis of acute problems and a reduced frequency of chronic problems made possible by a thorough preventative healthcare approach.

ImagineMD cuts out the costly network middleman

Now, instead of paying an insurance company anywhere from $600-$1,000 in premiums, without any visibility into how the money is being spent, the employer pays ImagineMD directly for care and coordination of care outside ImagineMD's four walls. When care outside of ImagineMD is required, the employer pays a small percentage above Medicare rates. That is, instead of paying a rate discounted off a price that’s only disclosed after a patient has a healthcare encounter, our employer pays a certain percentage above Medicare rates without being forced to use a network that contains potentially low-quality, overpriced healthcare providers. Further, because the health plan is self-funded, the employer can keep the money it doesn’t spend and pass it on to its employees in the form of lower insurance payroll deductions.

In the first three months, ImagineMD was able to provide the employer’s employees cost-effective, immediate, easily accessible, personal primary care while simultaneously decreasing the need for more costly healthcare services like ER visits, specialty visits, lab tests and expensive prescriptions.

If ImagineMD could dramatically bring wellness and savings in the first 90 days to this employer, imagine what we could do for your business!

Call us to see how we can help you provide better care at lower costs. 312-374-5860