Employers Clinic Commission

A Worksite Clinic Assessment and Advisory Firm Serving Employers, Clinic Companies and Benefits Advisors.

You Selected Your Clinic Provider With Goals in Mind.

Are You Achieving Those Goals?

Can the Impacts be Improved?

Are You ERISA and CAA Compliant?

How We Can Help

Clinic feasibility, design and implementation

Objectively assess and quantify the value you’re experiencing from an existing clinic

Materially enhance the value your clinic is delivering 

The Clinic Sponsor’s Dilemma

Many employers invest significant resources into worksite clinics, based on promises of better employee and dependent health, lower overall health costs, improved productivity and morale. 

Performance reports are nearly always provided by the vendor, and are mostly glowing. But only rarely are the analyses subjected to independent, third party assessment and validation as required under ERISA and the Department of Labor. 

The Employers’ Clinic Commission (ECC) provides independent expert evaluations of existing clinic performance, as well as advisory and  risk management services focused on enhancing the value created by a clinic.

Clinics: A Win or Not?

Worksite clinics can be powerful platforms for managing healthcare clinical and financial risk. A clinic should first be designed to be a comprehensive medical home – a place where patients can turn first for care – but also one where the staff is always thinking about and advocating for their patients. But to be most effective, it should become a platform to execute a full array of management tactics that can drive appropriate care and, more importantly, disrupt inappropriate care and cost throughout the entire health system. Properly configured, a good clinic can improve the health of both individual patients and the patient population, reducing net total health spend by 20% or more. Sponsors investing in a good clinic should achieve high multiple returns in better health as well as measurably reduced total healthcare plan costs.

Only 2 in 5 clinic sponsors could produce data showing that they saved more money than they spent on their health centers.

Choosing an effective clinic vendor is key, but often, that doesn’t happen. A 2015 Mercer survey found that only 2 in 5 clinic sponsors could produce data showing that they saved more money than they spent on their health centers, a damning indictment.

This finding suggests that, unless they’re seeing significant health outcomes improvements, most clinic sponsors are spending 8%-12% more than their health plan premium to get little additional benefit. This also means that many clinic vendor choices may be driven primarily by advisors who lack direct clinic experience and by factors other than performance and value. The result of less-than-optimal choices can be poorer patient health and substantially higher costs.  But there is a smarter approach that relies on specialized independent experience.

Effective clinics are realized through seemingly small design decisions.  These include who leads the clinic, whether there are co-pays, the length of office visits, whether the clinic dispenses drugs, how referral decisions are made, how the clinic staff identifies patients who could benefit from intervention, whether the clinic vendor is likable and more more. In other words, worksite clinics should be more than just a primary care practice on or near an sponsors campus.  They’re about the totality of carefully thought-out employer decisions, coupled with innovation, to impact the complex problem of managing care and cost appropriately in a challenging environment bent on excess.

About Us

Employers Clinic Commission is an independent team of highly-experienced clinic professionals, focused on great outcomes for patients and purchasers. We understand performance is underpinned by improved health outcomes and costs, but also by patient and purchaser satisfaction. 

Employers Clinic Commission supports the employer, benefits advisor and clinic company independently evaluate, achieve and maintain compliance with ERISA and the Consolidated Appropriations Act. 

We can help you:

– Determine whether investing in a worksite clinic is the right path for your company

– Objectively assess the value you’re getting from an existing clinic

– Materially enhance the value that your clinic is delivering 

We believe that properly configured worksite clinics can be the hub of a healthcare enterprise dedicated to the optimal management of clinical and financial risk.

Our team has consulted with hundreds of healthcare companies. We’ve developed and operated clinics and improved the processes and systems that support them.

Committing our careers to innovating solutions for providers, employers and behind the scenes healthcare support organizations, our perspectives are diverse and deep. Our senior team has over 90 years of combined expertise in healthcare operations, physician practice management, group healthcare benefits management and economics.

We believe healthcare cost and quality can be measurably improved by carefully monitoring key performance indices, and by partnering with proven high value, high performance specialty vendors.

It’s a journey, not a destiniation.

We believe that properly configured worksite clinics can be the hub of a healthcare enterprise dedicated to the optimal management of clinical and financial risk.

Our team has consulted with hundreds of healthcare companies.  We’ve developed and operated clinics and improved the processes and systems that support them.

Committing our careers to innovating solutions for providers, employers and behind the scenes healthcare support organizations, our perspectives are diverse and deep. Our senior team has over 90 years of combined expertise in healthcare operations, physician practice management, group healthcare benefits management and economics. 

We believe healthcare cost and quality can be measurably improved by carefully monitoring key performance indices, and by partnering with proven high value, high performance specialty vendors.

It’s a journey, not a destination.

Leadership

Brian Baker

Chief Executive Officer

With 30+ years in healthcare, Brian has enjoyed numerous diverse roles impacting the strategic, operational and clinical challenges standing in the way of better care and financial outcomes. Some of his experience includes clinic development and implementation, business valuation and M&A facilitation along with clinical operations process design.

Leading a national consulting group as president after roles at Phillips and GE (where he learned Six Sigma and his hair fell out) he directed the assessment and turn-around strategy for hundreds of clinical operations, physician practice integrations and the development of advanced analytics. He has authored over 40npublished articles and lectured in the U.S. and internationally on technology and economics, successfully defended clients involved in PHI breach and HIPAA violation investigation and has enjoyed contributing on an imaging Quality and Utilization panel for CMS since 2014.

Outside of healthcare, Brian is an admitted adrenaline junkie and get-his-hands-dirty gearhead with an incurable affliction for automobiles. Acquiring his certification as a high performing driving instructor and the thousands of track miles since has taught him the nuances of leading; as a teacher, instructor or a coach. And more importantly, what can go wrong when you fail to mitigate risk, set achievable expectations and communicate effectively.

When he is not turning wrenches in healthcare or on cars for fun you can find him riding his orange tractor out on the farm in middle Tennessee.

Leading a national consulting group as president after roles at Philips and GE (where he learned Six Sigma and his hair fell out) he directed the assessment and turn-around strategy for hundreds of clinical operations, physician practice integrations and the development of advanced analytics products. He has authored over 40 published articles and lectured in the U.S. and internationally on technology and economics, successfully defended clients involved in PHI breach and HIPAA violation investigation and has enjoyed contributing on an Imaging Quality and Utilization advisory panel for CMS since 2014.
Outside of healthcare, Brian is an admitted adrenaline junkie and get-his-hands-dirty gearhead with an incurable affliction for automobiles. Acquiring his certification as high performance driving instructor and the thousands of track miles since has taught him the nuances of leading; as a teacher, an instructor or a coach. And more importantly, what can go wrong when you fail to mitigate risk, set achievable expectations and communicate effectively.
When he is not turning wrenches in healthcare or on cars for fun, you can find him riding his orange tractor out on the farm in Middle Tennessee.

Brian Klepper, PhD

Chief Strategy Officer

Formerly an owner of a national advanced primary care worksite clinic firm, Brian Klepper is a nationally prominent healthcare analyst and commentator. He speaks, writes and advises on realizing the potential of primary care, high-performance healthcare, and the assessment and management of clinical and financial risk.

In August 2023, The Health Rosetta, a national organization dedicated to facilitating practical health care reform, honored Brian with its lifetime achievement Champions in Transparency Rosie Award, recognizing his “work to usher in system-wide health care transformation.”

Chuck Smithers, CPA

Chief Financial Officer

Chuck Smithers is a health care finance and operations specialist, with expertise in care management, wellness and prevention programs, physician practice management, health plan operations and health care information systems. Early in his career, he was CEO of a multi-specialty physician group practice and ancillary services organization, growing the organization from 25 to 165 physicians. He later co-founded an international health care consulting practice, developing and operationalizing Medicaid HMOs, rural health networks and physician management services organizations. In 2015-16, he served as Interim CEO for the National Business Coalition on Health.

Advisory Team (more on the way!)

Richard Sutton

Senior Advisor - Value Creation

Richard is a visionary insurance and benefits leader who has revolutionized healthcare for his clients through his pioneering efforts establishing worksite clinics. His innovative approach to healthcare delivery in his 20+ years as Senior Vice President at Brown & Brown has not only improved access to medical services but has enhanced the overall quality of care for countless individuals.  As an early adopter Richard has helped clients implement more than 120 worksite clinics. His accolades include receiving the 2018 Outstanding Benefits Broker for Health Value and the Brown & Brown Champions Club among many others. 

His drive to inspire and empower others to push healthcare boundaries with creative solutions has produced meaningful results lighting the way for others to follow. The ECC is thrilled to have access to Richard’s insights and wisdom advising as part of our team.

May We Stay in Touch?

Please join us in the pursuit of quality, value and high performance in healthcare. 

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