Monday night the Loudon County Commission voted in favor of signing with a new insurance provider for county employees but shelved the matter of the controversial "wellness clinic" that had been discussed at a previous meeting.

County Purchasing Director Leo Bradshaw presented the commissioners with a handout detailing the cost comparisons between the county's current insurance provider, Cariten Premium, and the proposed new insurance carrier, United Health Care. "United has the best plan," Bradshaw told the commission. 

The county's agent is Chris Wampler of Carriage Hill Insurance.

He said the new plan would be approximately $6,000 less than the old Cariten plan and while the new plan's family cost are higher, the increase is offset by cheaper costs of vision and dental coverage.

Under the new United Health Care plan the county will pay $2,090,780. It would have cost $2,096,519 to renew the contract with Cariten. Bradshaw did note the cost of group life insurance under the new plan would be more, $48,025 instead of Cariten's $39,479, and recommended the commissioners go with the United Health Care program.

"By far it looks like the best way to go," Bradshaw said. 

When the insurance was first discussed at last month's commission workshop, the plan was presented along with an alternative "wellness clinic." They were described as a way of cutting down on costs by providing county employees with a clinic to handle day-to-day health needs. 

While the clinic could potentially save money on insurance costs, some commissioners expressed concern about how the clinic would be set up, the steps employees would have to comply with in order to be covered and how employees could be penalized with costs if they did not comply with recommendations from the clinic. 

Monday night, Commissioner Austin Shaver asked if the insurance proposal included a wellness clinic component. Bradshaw said it did not and establishing such a clinic would be a "separate issue from health insurance."

He also said any clinic would have more to do with next year's renewal and it is too late to consider a clinic this fiscal year.

"There's quite a bit involved to implement a wellness clinic," Bradshaw said.

Commissioner Don Miller agreed the insurance was a separate issue from clinic. "They're really not linked," Miller said adding a clinic was basically a program to educate employees about the need to change lifestyle habits to improve their health and lower costs.