TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical places of work, the small suite of examination rooms on the PhiferCares Clinic fills each day with sufferers in search of assist with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses.
However there’s an essential distinction about this clinic in central Alabama: Nobody will get a invoice, together with for prescriptions.
That’s as a result of the clinic is owned by a producing firm with a particular agenda. “We don’t need you to spend cash on well being care,” stated Russell DuBose, vp of human assets at Phifer.
Phifer, a worldwide producer of window screens, opened the clinic 5 years in the past in a bid to manage its well being care prices and cease huge medical payments from driving its employees into debt. The technique has paid huge dividends. Phifer has saved a lot on well being care that the corporate was capable of open a free summer season camp for the youngsters of staff.
Staff have dramatically boosted retirement financial savings, too. And Phifer is now including chiropractic care and orthotics, all for free of charge to employees.
Advantages like these stay out of attain for many U.S. employees, thousands and thousands of whom drain financial savings, take out second mortgages, or in the reduction of on meals and different necessities to remain forward of well being care debt. Total, about 100 million individuals within the U.S. are burdened by some type of this debt, KFF Well being Information has discovered.
A lot of these individuals have well being plans via employers who, unable to manage their well being care prices, now pressure employees to pay 1000’s of {dollars} out-of-pocket once they go to a physician. Phifer has proven there’s one other means. The corporate not solely saved itself cash, it’s sharing the advantages with employees and shielding them from debt.
“It’s actually exceptional,” stated Shawn Gremminger, president of the Nationwide Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, which works with employers on enhancing well being advantages.
“If I needed to level to a single employer in our community that’s been probably the most aggressive tackling this drawback and arising with probably the most revolutionary options,” he stated, “it’s a comparatively small, privately owned producer in a small city within the South.”
‘Unacceptable’ Well being Prices
Phifer is a family-owned firm based after World Warfare II by a former pilot. J. Reese Phifer noticed a possibility to show aluminum produced for the warfare effort into window screens for America’s booming suburbs.
At this time Phifer nonetheless makes screens at a cavernous plant outdoors Tuscaloosa that stretches over greater than 34 acres of manufacturing unit flooring. Inside, huge rolls of aluminum coil are unwound, stretched, and spun on rows of spools and looms. Elsewhere, fiberglass is woven into materials for window shades, patio furnishings, and different merchandise.
Enterprise has been good for the corporate, which employs about 2,000 individuals and operates vegetation in Alabama and abroad. Just a few years in the past, although, Phifer observed its employees weren’t saving sufficient for retirement. The offender was medical payments.
“Copays, coinsurance, price sharing. All these items have been taking cash away from our plan members,” DuBose stated. “The amount of cash staff have been having to spend on well being care was unacceptable.”
That’s commonplace. Most U.S. employees and their households are in a well being plan with important price sharing, requiring they pay 1000’s of {dollars} out-of-pocket earlier than protection kicks in.
The typical deductible for an employer-provided well being plan now exceeds $1,500, knowledge exhibits. And for household plans, deductibles may be a number of occasions that. That’s an enormous purpose well being care debt is such an enormous drawback, even for individuals with well being protection.
For Phifer, which depends on expert employees to function its machines, decreasing staff’ monetary stress turned a precedence, DuBose stated. “When you’ve gotten any person who desires to be right here each day, desires to be right here yearly,” he stated, “they’ll do some fairly superior stuff.”
Eradicating Boundaries
Phifer landed on a deceptively easy concept: Make it simpler — and cheaper — for employees to see a physician and fill a prescription. That, the corporate reasoned, might enhance worker well being and management pricey problems.
The cornerstone of this plan was the PhiferCares Clinic and pharmacy.
The corporate arrange the clinic in a small park and recreation house Phifer owned down the street from the manufacturing unit. It contracted with a neighborhood well being system to offer the doctor and nurses. Inside is a small pharmacy.
Without charge, staff and their households can go in for fundamental major care, together with checkups, vaccinations, and assist managing persistent diseases like diabetes. “It’s virtually a concierge service,” DuBose stated.
Phifer did one thing else, too. It directs sufferers to specialists and hospitals with the best high quality rankings. That may get monetary savings for sufferers and the corporate. Staff who select one in every of these suppliers sometimes don’t get a invoice.
That sort of no-cost entry makes an enormous distinction, stated Ronald Lewis, who visited the PhiferCares Clinic just lately for a checkup.
“I’m saving 1000’s of {dollars}, simple. Simple $3,000,” stated Lewis, whose spouse works on the plant. “All you’ve bought to do is are available, make an appointment, and so they are available and see you. … It’s a life-changer.”
The clinic has helped Lewis drop pounds and maintain his blood stress in verify. A physician additionally caught early indicators of prostate most cancers.
Cherry Wilson, who has labored on a manufacturing line at Phifer since 2017, stated she nonetheless has medical debt from a gallbladder surgical procedure she had earlier than she joined the corporate. However when she broke her foot extra just lately and bought surgical procedure from a most well-liked specialist, there have been no medical payments. “I don’t pay something right here,” she stated.
Large Dividends
Different corporations have experimented with office clinics with combined outcomes.
Operating a medical workplace may be costly. The technique might not work if staff aren’t centrally situated or if worker turnover is excessive. And financial savings can take some time to materialize. However analysis on employer well being advantages has proven that decreasing how a lot employees pay for major care and pharmaceuticals yields higher outcomes for employees and might save all people cash.
Phifer is reaping rewards.
Regardless of years of excessive inflation nationally, the corporate’s web spending on well being care was decrease in 2023 than in 2019, declining from $15.8 million to $14.9 million in fixed {dollars}, in line with knowledge supplied by DuBose.
The price of the corporate’s hottest well being plan — which comes with no deductible and contains dental advantages — is decrease, as effectively. Phifer employees pay $394 a month for this household plan. By comparability, employees nationally contribute $548 month-to-month on common for household protection that sometimes comes with a large deductible.
“We’ve seen the ability of prevention,” DuBose stated.
With financial savings from its well being care technique, Phifer opened the summer season camp final 12 months. And the corporate is providing faculty scholarships to employees’ youngsters.
Staff are saving extra, too. About 90% are hitting their retirement objectives, DuBose stated, up from round 75% 5 years in the past.
The protections from huge medical payments have had one other profit, stated Jerry Wheat, who has labored for Phifer for 38 years and runs a manufacturing line for fiberglass screens.
“It makes you need to maintain your self and do higher for the corporate,” Wheat stated. “If any person’s going to maintain you, don’t you need to maintain them? That’s the way in which I take a look at it. However I’m old-school.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working applications at KFF—an impartial supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Be taught extra about KFF.
USE OUR CONTENT
This story may be republished without cost (particulars).
