TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical workplaces, the small suite of examination rooms on the PhiferCares Clinic fills every day with sufferers searching for 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 want you to spend money on health care,” stated Russell DuBose, vp of human sources at Phifer.
Phifer, a world producer of window screens, opened the clinic 5 years in the past in a bid to manage its well being care prices and cease massive medical payments from driving its employees into debt. The technique has paid massive dividends. Phifer has saved a lot on well being care that the corporate was in a position to open a free summer time camp for the youngsters of staff.
Employees 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, hundreds of 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. General, 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 drive employees to pay hundreds of {dollars} out-of-pocket after they go to a health care provider. Phifer has proven there’s one other approach. The corporate not solely saved itself cash, it’s sharing the advantages with employees and shielding them from debt.
“It’s really remarkable,” stated Shawn Gremminger, president of the Nationwide Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, which works with employers on enhancing well being advantages.
“If I had to point to a single employer in our network that’s been the most aggressive tackling this problem and coming up with the most innovative solutions,” he stated, “it’s a relatively small, privately owned manufacturer in a small town in the South.”
‘Unacceptable’ Well being Prices
Phifer is a family-owned firm based after World Conflict II by a former pilot. J. Reese Phifer noticed a chance to show aluminum produced for the struggle effort into window screens for America’s booming suburbs.
Right this moment Phifer nonetheless makes screens at a cavernous plant outdoors Tuscaloosa that stretches over greater than 34 acres of manufacturing facility ground. 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.
Business has been good for the corporate, which employs about 2,000 individuals and operates crops in Alabama and abroad. Just a few years in the past, although, Phifer seen its employees weren’t saving sufficient for retirement. The perpetrator was medical payments.
“Copays, coinsurance, cost sharing. All these things were taking money away from our plan members,” DuBose stated. “The amount of money employees were having to spend on health care was unacceptable.”
That’s commonplace. Most U.S. employees and their households are in a well being plan with vital price sharing, requiring they pay hundreds 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 instances that. That’s a giant cause well being care debt is such a giant drawback, even for individuals with well being protection.
For Phifer, which depends on expert employees to function its machines, lowering staff’ monetary stress turned a precedence, DuBose stated. “When you have somebody who wants to be here every day, wants to be here every year,” he stated, “they can do some pretty awesome stuff.”
Eradicating Boundaries
Phifer landed on a deceptively easy concept: Make it simpler — and cheaper — for employees to see a health care provider and fill a prescription. That, the corporate reasoned, may 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 area Phifer owned down the highway from the manufacturing facility. It contracted with a neighborhood well being system to offer the doctor and nurses. Inside is a small pharmacy.
For free of charge, staff and their households can go in for primary main care, together with checkups, vaccinations, and assist managing power diseases like diabetes. “It’s almost a concierge service,” DuBose stated.
Phifer did one thing else, too. It directs sufferers to specialists and hospitals with the very best high quality scores. That may lower your expenses for sufferers and the corporate. Employees who select one among 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 lately for a checkup.
“I’m saving thousands of dollars, easy. Easy $3,000,” stated Lewis, whose spouse works on the plant. “All you’ve got to do is come in, make an appointment, and they come in and see you. … It is a life-changer.”
The clinic has helped Lewis drop pounds and maintain his blood stress in test. A health care provider 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 lately and bought surgical procedure from a most well-liked specialist, there have been no medical payments. “I don’t pay anything here,” she stated.
Massive Dividends
Different firms have experimented with office clinics with combined outcomes.
Working a medical workplace may be costly. The technique might not work if staff aren’t centrally positioned 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 lowering how a lot employees pay for main 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 internet spending on well being care was decrease in 2023 than in 2019, declining from $15.8 million to $14.9 million in fixed {dollars}, based on knowledge offered by DuBose.
The price of the corporate’s hottest well being plan — which comes with no deductible and consists of dental advantages — is decrease, as nicely. 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 power of prevention,” DuBose stated.
With financial savings from its well being care technique, Phifer opened the summer time camp final yr. And the corporate is providing faculty scholarships to employees’ youngsters.
Employees are saving extra, too. About 90% are hitting their retirement targets, DuBose stated, up from round 75% 5 years in the past.
The protections from massive 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 want to take care of yourself and do better for the company,” Wheat stated. “If somebody’s going to take care of you, don’t you want to take care of them? That’s the way I look at it. But I’m old-school.”
