KOKOMO TRIBUNE
•
SATURDAY, SEPT. 29, 2018
BY CARSON GERBER
KOKOMO TRIBUNE
F
iat
Chrysler Automobiles
took steps to make employ-
ees healthier when it
opened a primary care
clinic in Kokomo in July.
The clinic exclusively serves
employees and their families in
a move that company officials
say will provide better medical
service while stemming the
company’s ballooning health-
care costs.
Kathleen Neal, director of in-
tegrated healthcare and disabil-
ity at FCA U.S., said Kokomo is
home to the company’s first em-
ployee-only clinic. She said FCA
is the first domestic automaker
to establish a near-site health
clinic for its workers.
The move marks a larger ini-
tiative by the company to take
control of its healthcare costs.
FCA will likely install similar
clinics around the country if the
program is successful in
Kokomo, Neal said.
The FCA Family Health and
Wellness Center is located at
1765 E. Lincoln Road, and
serves more than 22,000 mem-
bers of the company’s health-
care programs, most of whom
are located within 10 miles of
the clinic.
The clinic provides care at no
cost for nearly all FCA employ-
ees and their families in the
Kokomo and Tipton areas.
FCA has partnered with St.
Vincent to operate the clinic,
which includes a huge array of
services, including radiology,
physical therapy, X-rays, chron-
ic-disease management, pediat-
rics, blood testing and behav-
ioral health services.
The facility employs primary-
care physicians, four nurse prac-
titioners, a dietician, an exercise
specialist, registered nurses and
a licensed social worker. St. Vin-
cent also offers FCA employees
access to local specialists at St.
Vincent Kokomo and other sites
of care across its healthcare net-
work.
Neal said FCA decided to
open the clinic in Kokomo be-
cause its five plants in the area
comprise one of the largest au-
tomotive transmission com-
plexes in the world, and there
were enough employees to
make the facility work.
She said before the clinic, the
company never knew how
much it would have to pay for
employees’ healthcare because
of vast fluctuations in prices and
billing. At the clinic, though, all
the prices of the services are
fixed.
“We know what our costs are
going to be,” Neal said.
Healthcare trends show most
companies can expect to see
their medical costs rise by up to
7 percent every year. In the U.S.,
healthcare prices have increased
by more than 21 percent since
2008, according to the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
Neal said that kind of infla-
tion isn’t sustainable, and the
clinic is one of the ways the
company is trying to dodge that
increase by managing its health-
care costs.
“The system is rather dysfunc-
tional, because it doesn’t follow
a normal economic model,” she
said. “Competition isn’t driving
prices down. … We’ve done
many, many things to come in
below those annual increases,
and we continue to look for in-
novative ways to do that.”
Dr. Michael Busk, system ex-
ecutive and medical director at
St. Vincent Health, said the
clinic will help bring healthcare
costs down by keeping employ-
ees out of the emergency room
and emphasizing preemptive
care and treatment.
He said around 40 percent of
FCA employees currently don’t
have a primary care physician,
which means they were visiting
emergency rooms and urgent-
care facilities for treatment,
which can rack up hefty medi-
cal bills.
“FCA is so far ahead of the
curve in looking at how they
keep their employees and their
families healthy and well,” he
said. “That means keeping
healthy people healthy, and
keeping those with a chronic
disease as healthy has possible.”
St. Vincent Chief Operating
Officer Cheryl Harmon said the
clinic is also focusing on educat-
ing employees on how to stay
healthy and catch health prob-
lems before they get serious and
more expensive to treat.
“It’s really about getting peo-
ple in the door and getting
them to pay attention to what
needs to happen to stay
healthy,” she said.
Busk said the clinic will offer
better service to workers than
other health facilities, since phy-
sicians will have more time to
spend with each patient and de-
velop a personal relationship
with them. He said staff will
also work to ensure there is lit-
tle to no wait time to see a doc-
tor.
The Kokomo clinic is part of a
national trend in how large
companies are moving away
from traditional insurance poli-
cies and finding new ways to
provide cheaper healthcare to
their workers.
Neal said research has shown
over 30 percent of companies
that have more than 5,000 em-
ployees have created similar,
worker-only clinics. Some of
those companies include Dis-
ney, Harley Davidson and HBO.
“It’s becoming a phenomenon
and a trend, and I think we’re in
good company,” she said.
TAKING A HEALTHY STEP
FCA OPENS EMPLOYEE-ONLY CLINIC IN KOKOMO
THE GRAND TOUR:
Pam Kingseed gives a tour to Kathy Peoples,
VP at St. Vincent Kokomo, during the FCA opening of its first
ever medical clinic in Kokomo on July 26, 2018.
OPENING DAY:
Brad Clark, VP - Head of Engine and Transmission Manufacturing FCA, talks about
the opening of FCA’s first ever medical clinic in Kokomo on July 26, 2018.
(Tim Bath | Kokomo Tribune)
HEALTH
SPOTLIGHT
