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A Prescription for Workers' Health
Columbus Giles checks Mike Orlov's blood pressure at Freddie Mac's health clinic for the 4,300 employees on its McLean campus.
(By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)
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Employees are encouraged to maintain a relationship with their primary-care physicians. Giles does not think the clinic should become the full-time care for someone with heart disease or cancer, for example. But he is there for physicals, screenings, tests -- the blood work is sent by courier to a lab -- and visits if employees have questions about treatment elsewhere.
"We can block out time when they have more questions to discuss what the findings were," Giles said.
The hope to defray late-stage exorbitant costs was on the mind of Harrah's executives when they opened their first clinic in March.
Harrah's Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas has clinics for employees and their families in four of their casinos, including one in New Orleans that opened after Hurricane Katrina. "We were getting ready to open the casino and realized there were hospitals that weren't going to reopen," said Juliet Vestal, Harrah's director of health-care management. "A lot of people hadn't had any type of medical care since the hurricane." The clinic also treats the employees' dependents.
Harrah's recognized treating people before they got sick would help with longer-term costs, she said. Of 528 people given a general health screening at its new Lake Tahoe casino clinic, 80 percent had some finding such as diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid problems and liver problems. Many thought they were healthy and had not visited a doctor for preventive care, Vestal said.
"They are not treating their body like a car" where it gets constant care and checkups, she said. "That's what we're trying to do."
Since Harrah's opened a gym for its Atlantic City workers three months ago, more than 1,800 employees have registered to use it. "People don't necessarily want to be unhealthy, but they don't necessarily know how to be healthy," Vestal said. "Their average salary is $28,000. These are not the people who can afford a personal trainer." But now, a gym is just steps away with a full-time fitness staff.
"I think everyone recognizes it's the right thing to do, as well as curbing medical costs," Vestal said.
