Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

New HMO fits small businesses

Nevada Health Visions' newest product harkens back to the company's roots in Brazil.

The product is BrokerPlus. It allows brokers and insurance agents to rate and quote a group health program during a first visit with a client.

"It's much different than the typical scenario which generally involves several sales calls and a lot of time," said John McCandless, director of Marketing and Sales. "This program is more efficient because agents and brokers will have the tools to rate and close a case right there in the client's office."

So what's that got to do with Brazil?

By the early 1970s, Dr. Edson de Godoy Bueno had worked his way through medical school after spending his youth shining shoes in the streets of Sao Paulo.

He knew about poverty and the dire need for health care.

So when he began rehabilitating an old, broken-down 35-bed hospital and its way of doing business in the small, poor town of Duque de Caxias, the young doctor began using what's known today as "MaxiMarketing Principals," according to Nevada Health Visions President and CEO Terry Van Noy.

"He knew the value of direct contact with his customers -- the patients. He knew them by name, and became involved with them as people, as human beings," he said. "Then he began offering what we'd call 'extra value' proposals, like soft drinks."

It was Bueno's way of enticing poor pregnant mothers into the clinic for desperately needed prenatal exams. He also provided free transportation to and from the clinic, as well as free classes for pregnant women.

Van Noy said the classes gave the women knowledge about health as well as food, and sweepstakes drawings with prizes like diapers, high chairs and cribs.

And it worked.

Within a year, the number of babies born each month in the hospital had doubled, salaries were being paid on time, purchasing was centralized and a pediatrician on duty 24 hours a day, according to Van Noy.

Bueno added three more hospitals, and by 1979 had launched a Brazilian version of an HMO -- which continued to offer healthy incentives to its members.

In 1994, Bueno brought his idea to Nevada as Nevada Health Visions. And as of March 1996, the HMO boasted about 2,500 members.

"Our BrokerPlus program is based on the same principle that Dr. Bueno used," Van Noy said. "It's a broker-friendly managed care program for businesses with 25 or fewer employees that's easier for everyone. Brokers and insurance agents can customize, rate and quote a group health program while sitting across the table from the client."

Van Not said the concept is particularly appropriate to the small business community of Las Vegas.

"Eighty percent of the employers in town have less than 25 employees. That's where our focus is," he said. "This product eliminates the bidding hassle and saves everyone's time."

Brokers, however, must be appointed and/or contracted before they can rate cases for Nevada health Visions.

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