by Karen Littleton
Frustrated by runaway health costs, some the nation’s
largest employers, including San Antonio’s Toyota
Motor Manufacturing, are opening onsite primary care
medical centers as a way to offer convenient service and free or
low-cost health care to their employees and their families.
Within the last two years, companies including Toyota,
Sprint, Nextel, Credit Suisse and Pepsi have opened or
expanded on-site clinics.
Toyota works in partnership with CHD Meridian
Healthcare, which offers the car giant’s employees and their
family’s preventative and primary healthcare, including family
practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, dental, optometry,
rehabilitation/physical therapy, radiology, lab services and
occupational health services.
Toyota employees can now stop by for check-ups, allergy
and flu shots, pregnancy tests or routine monitoring
for chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma.
At Toyota’s Family Health Center, the goal whenever possible
is to help solve the employee’s health problems without
the need for additional outside care.
For employees, such facilities can mean faster medical
attention and lower out-of-pocket costs, since visits are
usually free or carry only a small co-payment. For
employers, on-site healthcare facilities can mean gains in
worker productivity and lower health-insurance outlays.
Opened on January 2, Toyota’s $9 million, 20,000-
square-foot medical center is situated alongside the truck
assembly plant.
Unlike most of the new on-site medical offices —
which are staffed by nurse practitioners and in some cases
a part-time doctor, Toyota’s San Antonio health center has
two-full time doctors, a part-time physician, a blood-test
lab and an X-ray center.
Toyota currently has on-site pharmacies or prescription
drug services at 11 plants in the United States. The new
San Antonio clinic is meant to serve the 2,000 Toyota
employees and 2,100 people working for suppliers, as
well as their families.
The on-staff doctors are employees of the contractor
CHD Meridian.
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