Alexandra Vazquez works within the Phifer manufacturing facility, a window display producer exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical workplaces, the small suite of examination rooms on the PhiferCares Clinic fills every day with sufferers in search of assist with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses.
However there’s an vital 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 selected agenda. “We don’t need you to spend cash on well being care,” mentioned Russell DuBose, vice chairman 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 staff 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 time camp for the youngsters of workers.
Brooke Williams works on the pharmacy counter on the PhiferCares Clinic exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Without charge, Phifer workers and their households can go to and get primary main care, together with pharmaceuticals.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
Employees have dramatically boosted retirement financial savings, too. And Phifer is now including chiropractic care and orthotics, all for gratis to staff.
Advantages like these stay out of attain for many U.S. staff, tens of millions 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 folks within the U.S. are burdened by some type of this debt, based on an investigation by KFF Well being Information and NPR.
Lots of these folks have well being plans via employers who, unable to manage their well being care prices, now power staff to pay hundreds of {dollars} out-of-pocket after 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 staff and shielding them from debt.
“It’s actually exceptional,” mentioned 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 progressive options,” he mentioned, “it is 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 Conflict 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.
The outside of the Phifer workplaces and manufacturing facility exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Phifer, a family-owned firm based within the Fifties, manufactures window screens and different merchandise in its cavernous plant.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
Right this moment Phifer nonetheless makes screens at a cavernous plant exterior 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.
Russell DuBose, vice chairman of human assets at Phifer, says, “We don’t need you to spend cash on well being care.”
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
Enterprise has been good for the corporate, which employs about 2,000 folks and operates vegetation in Alabama and abroad. A number of years in the past, although, Phifer seen its staff weren’t saving sufficient for retirement. The wrongdoer was medical payments.
“Copays, coinsurance, price sharing. All these items had been taking cash away from our plan members,” DuBose mentioned. “The amount of cash workers had been having to spend on well being care was unacceptable.”
That’s common. Most U.S. staff and their households are in a well being plan with important price 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 exhibits. And for household plans, deductibles may be a number of instances that. That’s an enormous purpose well being care debt is such an enormous drawback, even for folks with well being protection.
For Phifer, which depends on expert staff to function its machines, lowering workers’ monetary stress grew to become a precedence, DuBose mentioned. “When you’ve gotten any person who desires to be right here daily, desires to be right here yearly,” he mentioned, “they will do some fairly superior stuff.”
Eradicating boundaries
Phifer landed on a deceptively easy concept: Make it simpler — and cheaper — for staff to see a physician and fill a prescription. That, the corporate reasoned, might enhance worker well being and management expensive problems.
The cornerstone of this plan was the PhiferCares Clinic and pharmacy.
The entrance entrance to the PhiferCares Clinic exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
The corporate arrange the clinic in a small park and recreation house Phifer owned down the street from the manufacturing facility. It contracted with a neighborhood well being system to supply the doctor and nurses. Inside is a small pharmacy.
Without charge, workers and their households can go in for primary main care, together with checkups, vaccinations, and assist managing persistent diseases like diabetes. “It’s virtually a concierge service,” DuBose mentioned.
Phifer did one thing else, too. It directs sufferers to specialists and hospitals with the very best high quality rankings. That may get monetary savings for sufferers and the corporate. Employees who select certainly one of these suppliers usually don’t get a invoice.
That sort of no-cost entry makes an enormous distinction, mentioned Ronald Lewis, who visited the PhiferCares Clinic just lately for a checkup.
“I am saving hundreds of {dollars}, simple. Simple $3,000,” mentioned Lewis, whose spouse works on the plant. “All you’ve acquired 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 shed extra pounds and hold 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, mentioned 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 acquired surgical procedure from a most well-liked specialist, there have been no medical payments. “I don’t pay something right here,” she mentioned.
Huge dividends
Different corporations have experimented with office clinics with blended outcomes.
Working a medical workplace may be costly. The technique could not work if workers 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 staff pay for main care and pharmaceuticals yields higher outcomes for staff 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}, based on information 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 properly. Phifer staff pay $394 a month for this household plan. By comparability, staff nationally contribute $548 month-to-month on common for household protection that usually comes with a large deductible.
“We’ve seen the ability of prevention,” DuBose mentioned.
With financial savings from its well being care technique, Phifer opened the summer time camp final 12 months. And the corporate is providing faculty scholarships to staff’ kids.
Employees are saving extra, too. About 90% are hitting their retirement targets, DuBose mentioned, up from round 75% 5 years in the past.
The protections from huge 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.
Jerry Wheat, who has labored for Phifer for 38 years, says beneficiant well being advantages make folks need to work more durable for the corporate.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
“It makes you need to deal with your self and do higher for the corporate,” Wheat mentioned. “If any person’s going to deal with you, don’t you need to deal with them? That’s the way in which I have 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 likely one of the core working packages at KFF.
0 Comments