A preliminary plan to create a worksite health clinic that would have served several large employers in the United Plaza office park has fallen through.
BSX Insurance’s president of employee benefits Kerry Drake, who was pushing the forward-thinking plan as a way to reduce spiraling health care costs in the local market, says it took too long to get the various companies to agree on details of the plan. In the meantime, the group lost out on the space in a behavioral health facility owned by Baton Rouge General that would have housed the clinic.
“Baton Rouge General needed to lease the space and couldn’t hold it for us any longer so we had to let go,” Drake says. “It’s hard to get multiple employers together to agree on everything.”
As detailed in a Business Report story last summer, worksite health clinics have grown increasingly popular among major companies nationwide, allowing them to take control of their health care destiny by reducing costs and boosting employee health engagement.
Onsite clinics enable employers to better manage their employees’ health care needs by making it easier for employees to see a provider at or near the workplace, cutting down on pricey emergency room and urgent care visits.
To make the numbers work, however, companies typically need a workforce of at least 1,000. BSX only has around 160, so Drake proposed partnering on the clinic with Turner, Excel Group and Aptim, all located in the United Plaza office buildings.
The companies held their first meeting in mid-July to discuss the idea of a joint clinic, with the help of Baton Rouge General, which owns a rehab facility in the United Plaza office park that would have made an ideal site for an employer clinic.
Drake cautioned at the time the deal might never get off the ground. He was right, though he believes it’s just a matter of time till workplace clinics become a reality in Baton Rouge.
“It’s the kind of thing that needs to happen,” he says. “Employers are freaking out because health care costs are rising so much. They have to do something.”
