Simmons Foods Invests In Employees? Health Care

Simmons Foods Inc. is not waiting on the government to make a decision about health care reform. The company, based in Siloam Springs, is part of a growing trend of employers offering medical care to their employees and their employees’ families.

According to the Massachusetts-based research firm Fuld & Co., more than 1,000 large companies in the United States have on-site, primary care health clinics, including Toyota, Nissan and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. On-site clinics serve about 5 percent of the working population, but the research firm expects that number to grow to 15 percent by 2015.

Simmons Foods opened medical clinics at its poultry processing facilities in Siloam Springs, Van Buren, Decatur and Southwest City, Mo. in 2007.

Gary Bryant, corporate director of benefits administration for Simmons Foods, said the company started talking about the idea several years ago as a way to improve access to medical care for employees.

The company had a physician visit each plant for three to four hours a week, primarily dealing with workers’ comp cases. Bryant said the company began encouraging its employees to see the physician when they had a cold or other common ailment.

“Once it started getting more in demand, we started thinking about how we could expand it and make it better for the employees,” he said.

The company wanted the capability to provide X-ray and lab services, so they approached PremierCare Northwest and struck a deal: Simmons would provide the buildings and Northwest would staff the clinics.

The four clinics, located in modular units at three sites and in the fitness center at the Decatur plant, are each staffed with one full-time nurse practitioner while Dr. Ralph Maxwell makes the rounds between the four clinics. The clinics are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Patients can expect all the services they would get from any primary-care physician, including wellness exams, immunizations, X-rays and urgent care.

The company’s 5,300 employees, as well as their spouses and dependents, can use the clinics.

For employees, the visits are free of charge.

The company also offers a pharmacy plan with zero co-pay for generic medications.

Steve Gardner, vice president of people services, said the clinics have already proved worthwhile just by getting employees in to see a physician.

Employees that probably would have avoided doctor visits because of the time and cost are taking advantage of the convenience.

The clinic staff has diagnosed diabetes, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and three or four cases of early stage breast cancer, Gardner said, leading to long-term cost savings for both the employee and the company.

 “Anytime you can find early stages of a disease, we know that’s a cost avoidance or cost savings,” he said. “But the big payback is keeping our employees healthy and at work.”

It’s especially important for prenatal care, Gardner said.

“A lot of women don’t go to the doctor like they should,” he said. “We encourage them to do that and we think we’ll have healthier babies because of it.”

Paul Storey, vice president for physician services at Northwest Health, agreed that the clinics have improved access to primary care for employees, leading to better preventative care.

“A lot of employees that work in the poultry industry don’t have good access to health care,” he said.

By detecting health problems in employees and treating them, the staff is preventing those problems from getting worse.

“That leads to a steadily more healthy workforce,” Storey said.

The clinics also increase productivity among employees.

“They can get in and get out in a timely fashion, rather than going to the emergency room and waiting three to four hours,” Bryant said.

Employees are not penalized for missing work to attend an appointment at the clinic.

Simmons is also incorporating its corporate wellness and disease management programs with the clinics. At the end of the year, the clinics will offer free mammograms for women. The clinics will also offer treatments for tobacco dependence.

Bryant said the feedback from employees has been great.

“It’s nearly free health care,” he said. “It’s one of the benefits of being employed at Simmons.”

With an average co-pay for a doctor’s visit at about $35 to $45, Gardner figures employees are saving at least $500 per year just on their individual care.

The company declined to say how much it cost to operate each clinic and does not have a measurement of its return on investment, but officials said there is a definite cost benefit to the company.

Bryant said the clinics are definitely being used. 

The four clinics are basically booked solid every day, he said. The staff sees between 1,600 and 1,700 people a month.

Simmons Foods is planning on expanding the clinic hours to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. in a couple of its locations.

“We need more availability and we want to make it more convenient for our employees that work evening shifts,” Bryant said.

The benefit comes at a time when health care costs for business and employees are skyrocketing. Employers are expecting a 9 percent increase in health care costs in 2010.

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, 42 percent of employers expect to increase the amount that employees must contribute to health benefit plans and 41 percent expect to increase the amount of co-pays, deductibles and other health costs to the employee.

In the past five years, health insurance premiums for employees have increased four times faster than wages, the report said.

As costs continue to climb, Storey said two other regional companies have expressed interest in partnering with Northwest to replicate the Simmons model.

The benefit to Northwest in partnering with employers is that it creates another avenue to treat patients in the region, he said.

“It’s also a way for us to build strong relationships with industry,” Storey said. “And it’s a neat way to help improve the health care of the community we’re serving.”