Knox proposes speedy health clinics

Mayoral candidate Tom Knox promises to bring pizza-delivery speed to low-income health care: Treatment in a half-hour, or the service is free.

Knox, a former health-insurance executive running in the May 15 Democratic primary, said he would establish 40 neighborhood mini-clinics built on the emerging convenient-care model.

The small health centers, where appointments would be unnecessary, would be staffed by nurse-practitioners who can diagnose common illnesses, write and renew prescriptions, and treat minor injuries.

Knox, who retired last year as chief executive officer of United Healthcare of Pennsylvania, said patients with insurance would face a maximum copayment of $7.50. Uninsured patients would pay the same fee - or no fee, depending on income.

Borrowing a old marketing effort of Domino's Pizza, Knox said the clinics would guarantee quick service.

"If you have to wait more than 30 minutes, it's free," Knox told a small group of voters last week in a preview of the proposal.

Knox's idea would attempt to replicate a private-sector model gaining vogue in the health-care industry. A growing number of entrepreneurs regard the clinics as a way to deliver simple medical care profitably. Medical insurers view them as a way to divert nonemergency patients from emergency rooms, especially on weekends.

"This isn't an original idea," Knox told a group of Pentecostal ministers last week. "I'm stealing it. They're doing it in other places. . .. But no city has ever done it. We'll be the first city to do it."

Knox said the convenience clinics would coordinate operations with the eight health centers operated by the city Health Department. The existing clinics provide a greater level of care, but patients complain they need to queue early in order to get service.

Knox said it would cost about $400,000 a year to operate a clinic with a nurse-practitioner that was open 10 hours a day, seven days a week. "As the business builds up, we'll put another practitioner in there," he said.

He said the clinics would pay for themselves if they received 20 insured patients a day. If the volume of uninsured patients is large, a Knox staffer acknowledged, the city might be required to subsidize the cost.

Health-care leaders attending a conference yesterday of the Convenient Care Association at the University of Pennsylvania said they were intrigued by the proposal.

"I'm all for what Tom is looking to do, because anytime anybody wants to promote access and affordability and high quality, it's great," said Hal Rosenbluth, the association's board president and co-founder of Take Care Health Systems, the Conshohocken operator of more than 40 retail clinics.