Lawrence company takes medical care on the road
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA Lawrence-based company has developed an idea to create healthier employees and address rising health insurance costs that are a chief concern for Hoosier employers.
Ertel & Co. drives its mobile medical centers around the state with the goal of driving down medical costs for employers by making care more convenient.
The mobile units focus in on two areas: prevention and managing chronic conditions.
In an interview with Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta, founder and President Mike Ertel said focusing on prevention can keep a company’s employees out of the hospital, ER or other expensive areas of health care.
“We know that the cost of health insurance is directly correlated to the health of the employees,” Ertel said. “They need some help with blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, those sorts of things [and] get that under control before they become one of these statistics, where about 7% of your people are going to have, in some cases, 80% of your claims. We’ve got to find that 7% before it happens, and not after.”
Only about one-third of Hoosiers get the recommended amount of preventive care. Ertel says for most of its clients, it can drive that number up to 90%, and the key is convenience.
“They don’t want to take a day off of work or half day off work, and it’s too far to drive, so we go there at their door and see them,” said Dr. Amy Kiley Ertel, vice president and medical director for Ertel & co.
Dr. Kiley Ertel says the power of prevention starts with a comprehensive physical, including bloodwork that’s processed in minutes before the patient leaves.
“There’s only a very few things that we don’t do like PSA, prostate cancer tests,” she said. “We don’t do a complete white blood cell count in platelets, but everything else we do, and we can see and counsel immediately, which is nice.”
Ertel says it moves about half of higher health risk employees to a lower risk category over the course of two years. The small company says it doesn’t replace primary care doctors but supports them by focusing on prevention.
With its eight person medical team, the doctor’s office on wheels is also good medicine for health care shortages in rural parts of the state.
“We know we have these health care deserts in Indiana that are really real, and I don’t think people realize how big the areas are that truly don’t have primary care physicians,” Kiley Ertel said. “And we have the blessing to take this mobile unit in little areas of Indiana I never even knew existed.”
Mike Ertel said he believes 2024 will be a big year of growth for Ertel & Co.