John Deere Joins Forces With the Mayo Clinic : Health care: Top farm equipment maker, medical center open facility in effort to cut costs and preserve quality treatment.

In a sparkling new building, employees of the world’s leading maker of farm machinery are lining up to see four new doctors at a company clinic created in cooperation with one of the nation’s top medical centers.

Deere & Co. teamed with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to establish a facility where the goal is to cut company health care spending while preserving high-quality treatment.

The prestige of the Mayo name helped convince many Deere employees to abandon their family doctors, officials said.

Opened in January, the Deere clinic has its own lab and drive-up pharmacy. Minor surgeries are performed. It is already considered a success in attracting patients.

“We signed up 13% of the eligible population,” said Michael Hammes, president of John Deere Family Health Plan. “We were almost astounded at the level of participation.”

The company says 4,000 of its 33,000 area employees, retirees and dependents have joined the clinic.

Deere hopes the new approach will slow increases in its medical costs, which rose from $20 million in 1971 to $220 million in 1992.

Eventually, Deere hopes to attract about 15,000 patients, a prospect that doesn’t thrill area doctors who are losing longtime patients.

“We’re left with fewer good-paying patients. And, as a result, we won’t be able to see as many patients who don’t have the ability to pay,” said Dr. James Bull, a family physician in Silvis.

Deere plans to build a second clinic near a factory complex in Waterloo, Iowa, and may expand its clinics’ services to other area companies.

“Clearly Deere is in this as a business, and we’re looking at the commercial possibilities,” Hammes said.

Both partners want to see if medical costs can be controlled by physicians following disease management strategies developed by Mayo and Deere under a company grant.

“Some call it cookbook medicine and say every patient is different,” said Dr. Richard Bartsh, the clinic’s director. “It’s not a cookbook. We’re simply removing question marks by applying as many disease management strategies as we can. Every physician wants to practice good medicine, and this will help.”

The program hopes to control costs by using its own doctors and specialists, who work at lower, preset rates. Experimentation costs are cheaper because doctors follow methods already tested at Mayo, known for treating presidents, celebrities and patients with unusual ailments.

In addition, clinic patients can be treated only at hospitals in the clinic’s network.

Deere spokesman Bob Combs said numerous companies have called seeking information on the clinic.

Retiree Bob Holland, a former factory inspector, is generally pleased with the treatment he’s received since the clinic opened Jan. 4, but he encountered some problems.

Twice the pharmacy didn’t have a prescribed medication. And his wife had to visit an orthopedic specialist twice because the clinic’s permission was needed before an X-ray could be taken.

“If they are going to run a pharmacy, they better have the medication the doctors are prescribing,” Holland said. “And they better coordinate their referrals better than that and save people some inconvenience.”