MARIETTA - Marietta City Council members will meet at 3 p.m. today at City Hall to discuss a proposal to finance a health clinic for 2,199 city employees, retirees and their dependents.

Mayor Steve Tumlin called the special meeting, though he said a vote on the issue will not take place until the council's Sept. 15 meeting.

The city already offers health insurance to its employees, and pays 85 percent of premium costs for employees hired after Nov. 1, 2006. For those workers' dependents, the city pays 20 percent of the premiums.

City Manager Bill Bruton has recommended that the city also provide a health clinic that employees and their families could visit without charge. Bruton insists the clinic would save the city money.

The clinic would be operated by Care Here of Tennessee at a cost to the city of $33,521 per month, or $402,252 per year. That cost includes a flat fee of $19,221 per month, plus $14,300 per month for medical staffing. The city will reimburse Care Here for the cost of prescriptions and lab work administered through the clinic.

The costs would be about half the cost of the same services provided by Blue Cross/Blue Shield through a doctor or pharmacy outside the clinic, said Shannon Barrett, assistant to the city manager.

City staff have said the clinic would be open about 24 hours each week, or about 96 hours per month, and there may be some evening or weekend hours.

If the plan moves forward, the city would lease about 1,200 square feet downtown to house the clinic, which would comprise a few exam rooms. The leasing cost would be on top of the $33,521 per month paid to Care Here.

The city's health insurance costs will increase in future years, with or without the clinic. But Barrett said the clinic would help hold down the size of the increase in the immediate future.

In fiscal year 2010, which ended on June 30, the city's health care costs were $8.2 million.

By opening the clinic, Bruton's staff estimated health costs would increase by 5 percent, to $8.6 million in fiscal 2011.

Without the clinic, Barrett said, Blue Cross/Blue Shield had quoted the city a cost of $8.9 million in fiscal 2011, which would be an increase of 8 percent.

The expected savings from opening the clinic, she said, is based on experiential data from other similar clinics. But these numbers are not guaranteed, she said.

"There are no guarantees, but the numbers used in calculating the savings are very conservative," she said. "Based on experiential data from other clinics, Marietta could anticipate a higher savings. The city chose to use conservative numbers in the first year in projecting the anticipated savings."

One way the city could see savings is through reduced worker's compensation claims. The city has a Third Party Administer (TPA) to handle all workers' compensation cases and filings with the state, for which the city pays the TPA an average of $150 for each claim processed. If the cases of a minor medical nature were handled by the clinic, those cases would not be forwarded to the TPA, resulting in a cost savings of $150 for each minor claim, and the records would be maintained with the clinic, she said.

In years past, the city has saved money by increasing copays and deductibles, but that won't work now.

"The advent of the recent health care reform requires additional cost savings measures to hold down costs due to the uncertainty of future mandates," Barrett said. "Under the new regulations, the city is restricted from increasing copays and limited in increasing deductibles and making other changes to the plan because those actions would jeopardize the grandfathered status of the city's current medical insurance coverage, resulting in increased costs to the city."

Council members, who would be able to use the clinic along with employees, seem to favor the proposal.

"From what staff has explained, it sounds like it should be pursued because of the potential for savings to the city budget," Councilman Philip Goldstein said.