Schweitzer to open company-run health clinic in Lewiston

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories plans to open a medical clinic for employees at its Lewiston plant, modeled after a successful clinic the company operates at its Pullman, Wash. headquarters.

Schweitzer opened its Pullman clinic in early 2013 and moved it to a new, larger location in March. A doctor and three nurse practitioners there see about 500 patients each month, said Michele Beehler, the company’s human resources manager. About 2,000 people work at Schweitzer in Pullman.

In Lewiston, where Schweitzer has about 250 employees, the clinic will be smaller, with two patient rooms compared to the Pullman clinic’s seven. As in Pullman, primary care services will be provided to employees and their families free of charge, Beehler said.

“Because we are self-insured, we don’t bill, because we’d only be billing ourselves,” she said.

Employer-provided on-site clinics are an increasingly popular way to reduce absenteeism and cut health costs. A study by the human resources consulting company Towers Watson found that nearly 40 percent of large U.S. employers with onsite health clinics planned to add more in the next two years. Most employers in the study said the clinics had increased productivity and reduced health care costs. The Towers Watson 2015 Employer-Sponsored Health Care Centers Survey said most of the clinics offered a similar range of primary care services.

The Boise-based Micron Technology Inc. has 12 clinics worldwide, including one in Boise that is operated by a company called Premise Health, said spokesman Dan Francisco. St. Luke’s Health System has employee clinics in several locations, including Boise, Meridian, McCall, Mountain Home, the Wood River Valley, and Jerome, said spokesman Tim Marsano.

Schweitzer became self-insured in 2012 to save money on overhead, and then wasted little time in setting up a clinic. Its clinic operation is different from those of Micron in that Schweitzer is running the clinic itself, and didn’t hire a third-party provider to operate it.

“SEL is essentially a company of entrepreneurs and inventors,” said Kate Wilhite, a Schweitzer spokeswoman. “When we need something done, we enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to do it ourselves.”

Beehler had experience hiring health professionals from working at a small rural hospital in Pomeroy, Wash. And the company’s first hire was a nurse practitioner who had worked for the Walgreen’s pharmacy chain, setting up clinics.

“I think that’s why the vast majority of people go with a vendor or third-party administrator,” Beehler said. “The hardest part is the hiring.”

For now, the benefit of free primary health services has served as a recruiting tool, at least for some prospective workers, Beehler said.

Schweitzer initially opened its Pullman clinic in one room in a manufacturing facility, and then expanded it as patient visits grew. The company eventually built a structure for the health clinic, the company child care, and a fitness facility.

There are some potential problems. One is that some workers have privacy concerns. Beehler said there is no interaction between providers and company managers.

“We work just like any other clinic; we have to abide by HIPAA standards and we have a HIPAA privacy officer,” she said. “Our providers have a completely separate system that they work on, that no one at SEL has access to.”

She said she’s also not worried that free care will lead to overuse. Following the accountable care model set forth in the Affordable Care Act, the Schweitzer clinic incentivizes providers to give higher quality care, not to prescribe more tests and procedures, she said.

“We have longer appointments, and providers spend more time with our patients, because they don’t want them to come back two or three times, because that’s going to take them away from their jobs,” she said.

Beehler said one of the biggest challenges that on-site care managers face is knowing how to provide health care under COBRA when an employee leaves the company. It is not clear if Schweitzer is obligated to continue providing care when an employee leaves.

“That’s one thing that is not very well defined that has constantly been a struggle,” she said.

The Lewiston clinic is expected to open in the first quarter of next year. Schweitzer is also opening an office in Boise in mid-October. Beehler said the company has no plans yet for providing primary care services there, but might consider telemedicine.

Schweitzer has 52 field offices in the United States and another 48 around the world. There are no plans to set up health clinics at other offices, she said.