As healthcare costs continue to increase year-over-year, employers are looking for ways to better track and manage the utilization of healthcare resources.
Increasingly this means bringing healthcare clinics in-house – or at least on the premises.
According to a 2017 employer survey conducted by business consulting firm Mercer and the National Association of Worksite Health Centers (NAWHC), a third of companies with more than 5,000 employees now offer general medical clinics at their work sites. That represents a nearly 10 percent increase from the 24 percent of large companies counted in 2012.
This number includes major employers like Apple, which launched its own medical clinic program called AC Wellness for employees at the company’s headquarters in Santa Clara County.
Amazon, which has recently made big strides into healthcare, including through its joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase, is also reportedly opening its own health clinics for its Seattle employees.
While it’s true that occupational health clinics – which are especially prevalent in industries and work sites focused on manufacturing and manual labor – are still more common than general medical clinics, employers are starting to offer a larger array of services from those sites including chronic disease management, mental health resources and pharmacies.
“More and more employers are finding measurable value in providing high quality healthcare and patient experience via worksite clinics,” said Mercer Worksite Clinics Consulting Group Leader David Keyt in a statement.
“Given the high rates of employee satisfaction and utilization, I think we will continue to see growth in offerings of clinics and expansion of the health services that clinics provide.”
Among companies with between 500 and 4,900 employees, 16 percent provide a general medical clinic for their workers and another 8 percent say they will add one by 2019.
A number of primary care startups have targeted the employers space including Crossover Health, which runs a number of Apple’s worksite clinics outside of the Bay Area, Seattle-based Vera Whole Health, which serves companies and local governments and San Francisco-based One Medical, which offers customers the option to build a new clinic from the ground-up or flexible clinic hours staffed with One Medical clinicians.
Providing this benefit doesn’t just breed goodwill, data suggests that the clinics make financial sense as well by creating movement towards preventive health measures and diverting workers from expensive sites of care like hospital emergency rooms.
Two-thirds of survey respondents with general medical clinics allow members to select the clinic as their primary care provider, potentially leading to more efficient and effective care coordination.
According to research from insurance brokerage Willis Towers Watson, more than 75 percent of companies with on-site clinics are measuring their return on investment.
According to the Mercer survey, half of these companies have reported a return of 1.5 or higher – meaning that for every dollar invested, they’ve saved a dollar and a half through the reduction of member health risk, reducing absenteeism and increasing employee productivity.
“Employers are becoming more directly involved in shaping the health care market and improving their employees’ health,” Carly Deer, senior benefits leader at Target Corporation and NAWHC board chair, said in a statement.
“Properly structured onsite medical facilities can create a foundation of primary care and associated services that can assist moving care upstream, which can help improve outcomes, manage cost and increase productivity.”
Picture: Getty Images, andrei_r
