| In Issue 20 of Medical Travel Today we introduced Sam Shallenberger of RJ Young, a $100 million equipment and leasing company based in Nashville, Tenn. Like many US companies, RJ Young faces the challenge of providing affordable healthcare coverage to its 450 employees.With the assistance of Alex Tolbert of Bernard Health, Shallenberger began exploring the option of medical travel. Tolbert reached out to several medical travel companies, exploring the opportunities and how they fit with RJ Young’s needs and plans. Tolbert’s initial research indicated that a great deal of the financial benefits to medical travel have a greater impact for self-insured employers rather than those, like RJ Young, currently fully insured for their consumer-driven plan. However, Tolbert also noted there are a number of non-financial benefits that need to be considered. After surveying options for international medical travel, RJ Young has now decided to include domestic medical travel as an option for consideration. As Tolbert notes, Wal-Mart’s recent announcement of a domestic program in partnership with BridgeHealth Medical certainly contributed to this decision, as well as an analysis of RJ Young’s employee population. After January 1, 2013, Shallenberger and Tolbert plan to review high claimants over the last three years to gauge what impact a medical travel program could have. The idea is to improve the quality of care that RJ Young employees and their families receive, while being cost-efficient by working with providers with the best reputations. |
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