Dive Brief:
- Worksite clinics are a rising trend for employers in the search to save healthcare dollars, but they may not be as effective in reality as they would seem on paper. According to an article at Employee Benefits News, a September 2015 Mercer survey of 134 worksite clinic sponsors found that “only 41% were able to provide ROI data.”
- That same Mercer survey found that nearly 30% of employers with more than 5,000 workers now have on-site or near-site clinics offering some type of primary care, up from 24% in 2013. In addition to serving employees, some clinics also treat workers' families. Many of these facilities include fitness centers with exercise equipment. Growth is occurring, but is the worksite clinic approach working?
- While these services are often provided for free to employees, EBN reports that much like other players in the healthcare mix, clinic vendors as a group can have "wildly different and sometimes questionable ways of calculating health and financial impacts." The article notes that while clinic vendors naturally point to savings as a desired outcome, benefits managers need to ensure their clinic vendor has supporting ROI metrics.
Insight
As EBN points out, the Mercer data seems to indicate that the consultants guiding the choices of poor performing vendors may be "asking the wrong questions, may be conflicted by relationships with those vendors, or both." In any case, accountability for results is lacking with sometimes disastrous results for client employers.
One key reason for the confusion is that choosing a clinic vendor is a much more complex process than most other benefits decisions. HR and benefits leaders looking to add such a benefit should tread carefully and, it would seem, be especially focused on getting feedback from other users/employers. They should also ensure that consultant recommendations include clear, understandable outcome metrics.
More generally, the increased popularity of onsite clinics reflects an increased desire to have employees direct their own health decisions. Employers now see themselves as an access point by which employees can find resources to improve their health and, in turn, save company dollars over time.