Noam N. Levey
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical workplaces, the small suite of examination rooms on the PhiferCares Clinic fills every day with sufferers looking for assist with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses.
But there’s an essential distinction about this clinic in central Alabama: No one will get a invoice, together with for prescriptions.
That’s as a result of the clinic is owned by a producing firm with a selected agenda. “We don’t want you to spend money on health care,” mentioned Russell DuBose, vice chairman of human assets 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.
Workers have dramatically boosted retirement financial savings, too. And Phifer is now including chiropractic care and orthotics, all without charge to employees.
Benefits 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. Overall, about 100 million individuals within the U.S. are burdened by some type of this debt, KFF Health News has found.
Many of these individuals have well being plans by way of employers who, unable to manage their well being care prices, now power employees to pay hundreds of {dollars} out-of-pocket after they go to a physician. Phifer has proven there’s one other manner. The firm not solely saved itself cash, it’s sharing the advantages with employees and shielding them from debt.
“It’s really remarkable,” mentioned Shawn Gremminger, president of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, which works with employers on bettering 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 mentioned, “it’s a relatively small, privately owned manufacturer in a small town in the South.”
‘Unacceptable’ Health Costs
Phifer is a family-owned firm based after World War II by a former pilot. J. Reese Phifer noticed a chance to show aluminum produced for the battle effort into window screens for America’s booming suburbs.
Today 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.
Business has been good for the corporate, which employs about 2,000 individuals and operates vegetation in Alabama and abroad. A couple of years in the past, although, Phifer observed its employees weren’t saving sufficient for retirement. The offender was medical payments.
“Copays, coinsurance, cost sharing. All these things were taking money away from our plan members,” DuBose mentioned. “The amount of money employees were having to spend on health care was unacceptable.”
That’s common. Most U.S. employees and their households are in a well being plan with important value sharing, requiring they pay hundreds of {dollars} out-of-pocket earlier than protection kicks in.
The common deductible for an employer-provided well being plan now exceeds $1,500, information reveals. And for household plans, deductibles might be a number of instances that. That’s a giant purpose 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, decreasing staff’ monetary stress turned a precedence, DuBose mentioned. “When you have somebody who wants to be here every day, wants to be here every year,” he mentioned, “they can do some pretty awesome stuff.”
Removing Barriers
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, may enhance worker well being and management pricey issues.
The cornerstone of this plan was the PhiferCares Clinic and pharmacy.
The firm 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.
At no value, staff and their households can go in for primary main care, together with checkups, vaccinations, and assist managing persistent sicknesses like diabetes. “It’s almost a concierge service,” DuBose mentioned.
Phifer did one thing else, too. It directs sufferers to specialists and hospitals with the best high quality rankings. That can lower your expenses for sufferers and the corporate. Workers who select one in every of these suppliers usually don’t get a invoice.
That type of no-cost entry makes an enormous distinction, mentioned Ronald Lewis, who visited the PhiferCares Clinic lately for a checkup.
“I’m saving thousands of dollars, easy. Easy $3,000,” mentioned 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 extra pounds and preserve his blood stress in test. A physician additionally caught early indicators of prostate most cancers.
Cherry Wilson, who has labored on a manufacturing line at Phifer since 2017, mentioned she nonetheless has medical debt from a gallbladder surgical procedure she had earlier than she joined the corporate. But when she broke her foot extra lately and received surgical procedure from a most popular specialist, there have been no medical payments. “I don’t pay anything here,” she mentioned.
Big Dividends
Other corporations have experimented with office clinics with combined outcomes.
Running a medical workplace might 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. But analysis on employer well being advantages has proven that decreasing how a lot employees pay for main care and pharmaceuticals yields higher outcomes for employees and may save all people cash.
Phifer is reaping rewards.
Despite 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}, in line with information supplied by DuBose.
The value 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 monthly on common for household protection that usually comes with a large deductible.
“We’ve seen the power of prevention,” DuBose mentioned.
With financial savings from its well being care technique, Phifer opened the summer time camp final yr. And the corporate is providing school scholarships to employees’ kids.
Workers are saving extra, too. About 90% are hitting their retirement objectives, DuBose mentioned, up from round 75% 5 years in the past.
The protections from massive medical payments have had one other profit, mentioned 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 mentioned. “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.”
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working applications at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Learn extra about KFF.
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