On-campus clinic brings primary care to senior living residents - McKnight's Senior Living
Springfield Masonic Community and Dayton, OH-based Premier Health officially began operating the senior living community's on-campus clinic April 4, with services ranging from routine primary care to acute care situations, such as skin tears. Staff members also are welcome to take advantage of the clinic services.
"It's a one-of-a-kind space," Shiela Wallace, who handles media relations for the community's parent company, the Ohio Masonic Home, told McKnight's Business Daily.
In addition to the medical clinic, there is a dental clinic on site as well that has operated independently for a number of years, Wallace said. The full dental clinic is staffed by a local dentist every Monday.
A physician visits higher-needs residents in their rooms. Wallace said the on-campus clinic accepts private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
Springfield Masonic Community offers independent living, assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation on 250 acres in Southwest Ohio. "To my knowledge, there is nobody else in Ohio that has something like this," she said.
Premier Health pays rent to Springfield Masonic Community for the space, but the clinic otherwise doesn't bring any profit to the community, Tony Berardi, president of Springfield Masonic Community, told the McKnight's Business Daily.
"It's not meant to be a revenue stream. It's meant to be a value-add for the residents and the staff," he said.
The health clinic has existed in various forms throughout the community's founding, but the partnership with Premier for medical services is new, said Berardi, who has worked at Springfield Masonic Community for six-and-a-half years.
When Berardi joined the community, he said, the clinic was an extension of the medical director's practice. In trying to give the clinic more of a primary care feel, Beraldi said, the company looked for a business partner to work with. It found a company to work with, "but the partnership wasn't as aligned as it is now with Premier," he said.
This marks the first partnership between Premier and a retirement community to provide staffing for on-campus medical care, the local CBS News affiliate reported.
"This model that we're kind of launching will eventually be handed out at the other [Ohio Masonic Home] campuses as we move forward," Berardi said.
The on-campus clinic business space was remodeled in 2015 and now has three exam rooms, a consultation room, a lab room, a doctor's office and a restroom/biohazard room.
"It's like going to a small doctor's office," Berardi said.
The concept works, the executive said, because many of the residents move in from other parts of Ohio and even other parts of the country, so they might not have a local primary care physician. Many residents appreciate that they don't have to leave the campus for routine care, chronic disease management or prescription refills, he said.
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