By moving to a larger building on Woodrow Avenue and handling more patients, Stanislaus County's McHenry Medical Office would save more than $5 million -- sort of -- over the next 15 years.

More accurately, the clinic should lose about $5.3 million less in that time than it would by staying at 2501 McHenry Ave., the county's top health services official told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

"We'll lose less money less quickly," said Margaret Szczepaniak, director of the county's Health Service Agency. "When you run an indigent care business, you know it generally doesn't turn a profit."

The idea of saving money looks good to supervisors, who keep hearing horror stories about California's projected budget deficit.

By a 5-0 vote, they told Szczepaniak to continue negotiating a lease for quarters at 1209 Woodrow Ave.

The 9,766-square-foot McHenry Avenue office opened in 1989. It initially offered family planning services and handled about 6,000 patient visits per year. The clinic grew to offer a full range of medical services and a Southeast Asian clinic. But the clinic, which handles nearly 24,000 patient visits each year, has run out of room and can't take on many more patients.

The building on Woodrow Avenue would provide 15,337 square feet. The additional space would allow the clinic to handle nearly 43,000 annual visits. The county's population is expected to continue to grow, creating even more need for county services.

The growth in volume would increase income, which the clinic needs because Medi-Cal pays only $12 per visit and generally makes the county wait for reimbursement.

"Medi-Cal is very poor payer," Szczepaniak said. "It does not come close to providing the costs of care to that (indigent) population."

Many patients would require procedures beyond the initial visit, generating more income for the clinic.

With the additional patient visits, Szczepaniak said the clinic would run in the black for the first eight years of a 15-year lease. That's because the extra income from more patient visits and procedures, for a time, would outpace additional expenses, such as employee raises, increasing pharmaceutical costs and other rising expenses.

In the ninth year of the lease, those higher costs would begin to overtake the savings. Szczepaniak projects, in a worst-case scenario, that the clinic would lose $12.5 million over the 15-year lease at Woodrow Avenue. It would lose $17.8 million over the same time by staying at McHenry Avenue, she said.

The Woodrow Avenue building offers room for expansion and, like the McHenry facility, is on the Modesto Area Express bus line, preserving access for clients who rely on public transportation.

Once the lease is settled, the board must approve it. The Woodrow Avenue clinic then would open within about six months, Szczepaniak said.

Bee staff writer Jeff Jardine can be reached at 578-2383 or jjardine@modbee.com.

Reprinted by permission of the Modesto Bee.