As health costs, rise employers jump into providing care

Associated Press

KOKOMO, Indiana

Autoworkers in this blue-collar, central Indiana city have an eager helper waiting to pick up the bill at their next doctor visit.

Fiat Chrysler is offering free health care for most of its employees and their families – about 22,000 people – through a clinic the carmaker opened this summer near one of five factories it operates in the area. The company pays for basic care such as doctor visits and consults with a dietitian and even an exercise physiologist. Workers don’t pay a cent, not even a co-pay.

The idea: Spend more now to improve care and eventually pare the more than $100 million that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles pays annually for health care, just in Indiana.

“We looked at how do we change the health care delivery system, that’s really what employers are asking,” Fiat Chrysler executive Kathleen Neal said.

Corporate America is jumping deeper into the care its workers receive beyond just giving them insurance cards and a list of doctors they can visit. Companies are opening clinics on or near their worksites or bringing in temporary setups to make sure their employees get annual physicals.

In many cases employers are offering free primary care or charging only a small fee. Many believe the cost is worthwhile because they can improve employee health and cut even bigger bills in the future that stem from unmanaged chronic conditions such as diabetes or unnecessary emergency room visits.

Offering convenient care can also help attract new workers and cut down on time away from the job. But this shift means workers will have to change how they use the health care system. And companies, which don’t see individual medical records, have to patiently wait for some potential benefits from their investment such as a drop in health care costs.

“It is really, really hard to change behavior,” said Carolyn Engelhard, an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s medical school who studies health policy.

Big companies have long offered services to help employees recover from workplace injuries, and now more are delving into primary care.

Fifty-six percent of large employers will have on-site or nearby health centers by 2019, up from 47 percent in 2016, according to the National Business Group on Health.

Most of the businesses surveyed by the nonprofit, which represents large companies, have 10,000 employees or more. But benefits experts also see this trend in smaller businesses too, with some companies joining forces to pay for a nearby clinic that they share.

Fiat Chrysler opened its clinic after learning that 40 percent of its employees in the Kokomo area didn’t have a primary care doctor, and many defaulted to emergency rooms for care that wasn’t dire.