2024 DMCA JOURNAL Final - Flipbook - Page 26
Garland Chamber of Commerce
Innovations in Healthcare at Garrett
Electronics — Taming the Healthcare Lion
If you want to tame a lion like healthcare,
the smart option is to hire a someone with
experience in taming that particular beast. In
2017, Garrett Metal Detectors was battling the
healthcare lion and they made the smart choice.
Garrett brought in Harry Spring, a seasoned
healthcare entrepreneur. Harry had experience
with healthcare from every perspective —
patient, provider, and insurer. He’d seen
companies who got eaten by the lion and he’d
seen success stories.
The results? Garrett’s most recent plan year
cost was $1,173,025 or $8,319.33 per employee.
How’d we do it? Doing everything strategically
and nothing typical like bidding, plan design,
network shopping, etc. Here’s how we did it.
“Our employee health
plan in 2017 cost over
$3 million dollars a year,
which was $16,946.43
per employee, and we had
very few alternatives. So
few tools to use, we could
go to bid but it was more
of the same.”
— Steve Novakovich, Garrett Metal Detector CEO.
2. Met on-site for a day with our third-party
administrator. “They have our check book,
so we have to know them well” Steve said.
3. Formalized a plan strategy emphasizing
our care for our employees, wanting them
to experience their best health, healthcare
and lowest cost.
4. There are 10 plan management strategies
we follow: monthly meetings reviewing
plan performance and individual/
population status.
Hiring talent paid off. Garrett’s healthcare costs
dropped significantly year after year, while their
quality of care rose at an equivalent rate. But,
believe it or not, just cutting costs was not the
magic button. One of the key components of
Garrett’s success was the hiring of a full-time
professional nurse to meet with employees,
understand their real needs, and help direct their
treatment options.
DCMA Business Journal
1. Began our strategic plan working with
Harry who now owns a company called
RealPHN.
page 18
5. A key strategy is creating an individual
friendly health interface including:
a. A Personal Health Nurse™ contracted
through RealPHN to serve our
employees for improved health,
healthcare and cost.
b. Local primary care, cultivating
relationships with the primary care
doctors our people used by reviewing
claim information.
