Darrell Monfort will build a new small-animal veterinarian clinic a mile northwest of Iola.
Allen County commissioners paved the way Tuesday when they approved a conditional use permit for Monfort to put the clinic on land zoned for agricultural purposes.
Monfort and wife Kathy opened their veterinary business at their farm in 1990, initially operating out of their home. Later they added a clinic building, and more recently have been joined in the practice by Dr. Leann Flowers.
“We’re going to fix up a steel building that Dad bought for grain and equipment storage in 1955 and move it up next to the road (1300 Street),” Monfort said.
The building is 80-by-36 feet and will provide about four times more space in a location that will be easier for customers to reach, and also out of the flood plain.
“We’ll use the clinic just for our small animals practice,” Monfort said, and keep larger animals, such as cattle, at his farm site, where all veterinary activities occur today. “We’ll probably have an outdoor exercise run (for dogs and cats) but there won’t be any outdoor pens.”
The new clinic will have at last three examination rooms. The present one has only one, which “gets pretty crowded at times,” said Monfort. “We’ll also have more room to do laser therapy, which we use to relieve arthritis pain, deal with muscle injuries and do rehabilitation after surgery.”
Having the clinic on high and historically dry ground is important, Monfort said. During the July 2007 flood, “we were an island with about a foot and a half of water in our house,” Monfort said of his farmstead, three-quarters of a mile down a lane from 1300 Street.
The new clinic will be open for business about Jan. 1, Monfort said.
COMMISSIONERS agreed to sign a resolution encouraging Gov. Sam Brownback not to make changes in management of services for Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The resolution also asks Gov. Sam Brownback to “carefully consider any changes for those who receive “… long-term care services … and to continue the present state/county-appointed Community Developmental Disability Organization administration …”
Tim Cunningham, Tri-Valley Developmental Services director, said efforts to privatize programs that depend on Medicaid funding, which would put administration of services under managed care of out-of-state insurance companies, would increase costs and be a huge step backward for Tri-Valley clients.
He said costs today included 2.4 percent for administration, while with managed care that would increase to 5 to 10 percent because of profit motives of private insurance companies providing the service.
Service provided clients would suffer, because “managed care organizations have no experience working with our population,” Cunningham said, most of whom require long-term attention not just immediate medical services.
If the state had “sat down with us (Tri-Valley and other developmental disabilities groups) we probably could have worked out something that would have saved the state money,” Cunningham said. “But, they just tried to ram this down our throats.”
