LA PLATA — Charles County government workers, retirees and their families on the county health plan are a step closer to having their own doctor’s office.
The Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 20 approved a contract with Marathon Health to set up and run an advanced primary care center for people covered by the county’s health insurance. The voice vote came with no opposition and no discussion, in the first item of the board’s afternoon session. All five commissioners were present.
Jake Dyer, the county’s director of fiscal and administrative services, told the board that since a presentation in mid-September, staff had worked through the legal review of the contract. Approval, he said, lets the county begin the actual next step of standing up the center.
What the county was promised
Commissioners gave consensus to pursue the clinic on Sept. 15. As the Chronicle reported then, county staff and Marathon representatives laid out the case using two years of the county’s own claims data.
The county spends about $21.4 million a year on employee health care. Marathon projected the center would cost about $1.3 million a year in flat per-employee fees, which cover medications, lab work and vaccines. The projections presented in September were:
- About $897,000 in savings in the first year
- About $12.3 million in gross savings over five years
- About $5.3 million in net savings over five years, after the center’s costs
Those figures did not include potential savings from the center’s occupational health work, such as screenings for first responders. Marathon said it would tie performance guarantees to patient engagement, patient satisfaction, clinical results such as diabetes management, and claims savings.
What patients would get
The center would offer primary and preventive care, urgent care for minor illness and injury, on-site lab work and occupational health screenings. It would dispense roughly 150 to 200 generic medications at no out-of-pocket cost to people on the plan, and stay open at least 40 hours a week. The county would lease an existing building, with build-out costs capped at $700,000 under the plan presented in September.
Employer-run clinics like this are meant to cut costs by steering routine care away from emergency rooms and urgent care centers and catching chronic conditions earlier. Marathon told commissioners it has built more than 55 such centers and that 17 operate in Maryland.
Still to be decided
The Oct. 20 approval did not settle the details residents and employees will most want to know. The contract’s total value, the center’s location, its hours and its opening date were not discussed at the meeting. In September, officials estimated the center could open about six and a half months after funding and a site are finalized, with a target of the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2027.
Commissioners will set the center’s hours and location. With the current board’s term ending in mid-November, those decisions may fall to the board chosen in the Nov. 3 general election.
