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Alexandra Vazquez works within the Phifer manufacturing unit, a window display screen producer exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
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Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical workplaces, 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 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 world producer of window screens, opened the clinic 5 years in the past in a bid to regulate its well being care prices and cease large medical payments from driving its staff into debt. The technique has paid large 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 kids of staff.
Brooke Williams works on the pharmacy counter on the PhiferCares Clinic exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama. For gratis, Phifer staff and their households can go to and get primary main care, together with pharmaceuticals.
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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 free of charge to staff.
Advantages like these stay out of attain for many U.S. staff, 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. Total, about 100 million individuals within the U.S. are burdened by some type of this debt, in line with an investigation by KFF Health News and NPR.
A lot of these individuals have well being plans by employers who, unable to regulate their well being care prices, now drive staff to pay hundreds of {dollars} out-of-pocket once they go to a health care provider. 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 National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, which works with employers on bettering well being advantages.
“If I needed to level to a single employer in our community that’s been probably the most aggressive tackling this downside and arising with probably the most modern 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 Warfare II by a former pilot.
J. Reese Phifer noticed a possibility to show aluminum produced for the struggle effort into window screens for America’s booming suburbs.
The outside of the Phifer workplaces and manufacturing unit exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Phifer, a family-owned firm based within the Nineteen Fifties, manufactures window screens and different merchandise in its cavernous plant.
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Right now Phifer nonetheless makes screens at a cavernous plant exterior Tuscaloosa that stretches over greater than 34 acres of manufacturing unit ground. Inside, large 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
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Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
Enterprise has been good for the corporate, which employs about 2,000 individuals 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 have been taking cash away from our plan members,” DuBose mentioned. “The amount of cash staff have 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 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 could be a number of instances that. That’s a giant cause well being care debt is such a giant downside, even for individuals with well being protection.
For Phifer, which depends on expert staff to function its machines, lowering staff’ monetary stress turned a precedence, DuBose mentioned. “When you will have any person who needs to be right here every single day, needs to be right here yearly,” he mentioned, “they’ll do some fairly superior stuff.”
Eradicating boundaries
Phifer landed on a deceptively easy concept: Make it simpler — and cheaper — for staff 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 entrance entrance to the PhiferCares Clinic exterior Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Charity Rachelle for KFF Well being Information
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The corporate arrange the clinic in a small park and recreation house Phifer owned down the highway from the manufacturing unit. It contracted with a neighborhood well being system to supply the doctor and nurses. Inside is a small pharmacy.
For gratis, staff and their households can go in for primary main care, together with checkups, vaccinations, and assist managing power 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 scores. That may lower your expenses for sufferers and the corporate. Employees who select one in every of these suppliers sometimes don’t get a invoice.
That type of no-cost entry makes an enormous distinction, mentioned Ronald Lewis, who visited the PhiferCares Clinic not too long ago for a checkup.
“I am saving hundreds of {dollars}, simple. Simple $3,000,” mentioned Lewis, whose spouse works on the plant. “All you’ve received 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 extra pounds and hold his blood strain in examine. 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, 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 not too long ago and received 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.
Operating a medical workplace could be costly. The technique could 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 staff pay for main care and pharmaceuticals yields higher outcomes for staff and may save everyone 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}, in line with knowledge offered by DuBose.
The price of the corporate’s hottest well being plan — which comes with no deductible and contains dental advantages — is decrease, as properly. Phifer staff pay $394 a month for this household plan. By comparability, staff nationally contribute $548 monthly on common for household protection that sometimes 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 yr. And the corporate is providing faculty scholarships to staff’ kids.
Employees 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 large 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 individuals need to work more durable for the corporate.
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“It makes you need to care for your self and do higher for the corporate,” Wheat mentioned. “If any person’s going to care for you, don’t you need to care for them? That’s the best way I have a look at it. However I’m old-school.”
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working packages at KFF.
