Bentonville School District Withdraws Insurance Idea

BENTONVILLE -- The School District has decided to back off a proposal to bill insurance companies for the medical services its athletic trainers provide to students.

Michael Poore, superintendent, told the School Board the plan was legally sound and the district was prepared to take on the task.

At A Glance

Athletic Trainers

Athletic trainers are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians. The services athletic trainers provide comprise prevention, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions. Athletic trainers are recognized as highly qualified and skilled health care professionals defined by the Health Resources Services Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. They have designated current procedural terminology codes and uniform billing codes.

Source: Bentonville School District

That task, however, is one no other school district in the nation has attempted, at least as far as district officials know. Administrators fielded so many questions from the public on the matter it was distracting them from their other duties, Poore said.

"We continue to have people question it, and when we have the chance to sit down with those individuals, we usually get to a good place," Poore said. "But it's 30 minutes or more every crack we get of trying to explain why this is a legal thing. And I don't think that's necessarily going to go away. I think there will continue to be other questions."

Questions were coming through email and phone calls from a variety of people, Poore said.

"I've had lawyers in the community, I've had doctors in the community. I've had parents. It's been a mix," he said.

Poore also cited potential legal challenges as a reason he decided to pull back from the proposal. He also had concerns about the time athletic trainers would spend filling out paperwork on insurance claims.

The district first began to discuss the proposal with the School Board in May. Administrators estimated they could raise more than $100,000 per year in insurance money from treatments performed on student-athletes by athletic trainers Jeff McGee and Austin Kerkhover.

Families would not have been required to participate in the billing system. Either way, however, they would not have been asked to pay anything for the athletic training services their students received.

All money collected from insurance would have been invested back into the district's sports medicine program, according to Scott Passmore, athletic director.

The district's proposal had been vetted by district attorney Marshall Ney and others, Poore said. The National Athletic Trainers Association supported it as well.

"I know when we talked to some of the national groups, they were very excited that we were willing to maybe put our neck out there," he said. "But how I'm looking at it right now is to withdraw, and further study, see if anyone else reacts to it, and maybe we get to proceed at a later date."

Brent Leas, a board member, said he thought Passmore and his staff did a great job of presenting the issue.

"I think they really did their homework, making sure they answered all the questions adequately, dotted all their I's and crossed all their T's," Leas said. "So I'm disappointed it's being pulled, but I understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe we can revisit it down the road when we've got more answers."

Board member Lisa Clark said she appreciated Poore's decision.

"I think that that was probably a tough call to make, because it is really appealing, the prospect," Clark said. "And the initiative (Passmore's) team took is commendable. But I think particularly the foresight of additional legal bills is daunting, and because we do live in such a litigious society, as we well know, those lawsuits come."

District officials said some universities have insurance billing programs similar to the type they were proposing. In documents prepared for the board, they listed Washington State University, Missouri State University, Iowa State University and Boston University as among those schools.

When contacted by NWA Media, athletic training officials from Washington State and Iowa State denied having any such program. A Boston University communications official did not respond to an email seeking comment.

McGee said he had several conversations with Missouri State about its program. One attempt by NWA Media to reach a Missouri State official familiar with the concept was unsuccessful.

Poore said he appreciated the effort Passmore and his staff put into researching and presenting the plan.

"I think it shows a real effort to do the exact things we continue to say we want to do," Poore said. "We want to be more efficient, we want to have less of the district's dollars going toward the athletic budget, and this was a creative opportunity the staff looked into. We just think that when you add up some of the potential costs of time, it just doesn't seem to fit right now."

NW News on 07/15/2014

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