How this small business launched an on-site healthcare clinic for its staff

In 2021, Stephanie Koch realized that the 300-person workforce at Hendry Marine Industries (HMI) was underutilizing the shipyard's preventive health offerings — and she took it as a cry for help. 

"We knew we needed to find convenient care for our employees," says Koch, the company's HR directory. "We wanted to make sure they were taking care of themselves, or else we'd have either catastrophic claims or we'd have fatalities."

In search of new ideas, Koch attended an HR conference in Florida where she was introduced to Walk On Clinic, a hybrid healthcare company that provides companies with on-site medical assistance. Walk On Clinic provides a fully equipped mobile doctor's office right on the shipyard's premises, with access to a primary care physician as well as prescription services for HMI's employees and their families.  

"Immediately I knew that was what we needed," she says. "I brought them in once a week and started running programs to incentivize employees to use the clinic and get as many people in to get their preventative wellness visits as possible." 

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More than 58% of large employers, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Tesla, now offer on-site medical care for their employees, according to the Business Group on Health. Ninety-one percent of employees who utilized on-site clinics reported being satisfied with the care they received, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Worksite Health Centers. As a result, companies with on-site clinics see a 59% increase in employee attraction and retention, according to a study from software company GoShadow, as well as a 63% decrease in missed work days.  

"We do not make the employees clock out to go to the clinic, because we didn't want to deter them," Koch says. "Employees aren't having to take time off to go to the doctor, because they're able to get the same type of services here now. They can get prescriptions called in and even a diagnosis."

But as HMI offered improved proximity and accessibility to care, Koch's team was disappointed to see utilization remaining stubbornly low. Trust was a key factor, and the team set out to improve relationships between employees and the organization, and ensure that employees knew their medical information and history would always remain safe, even when care was being provided at work.

To do that, HMI enlisted the help of a few employees that had seen beneficial outcomes from their use of the clinic, including an employee that was diagnosed with cancer and another that was treated for stroke prevention. Their testimonials helped ease any concerns their colleagues may have had about embracing the clinic. 

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"[Employees] were initially looking at it like we just wanted information on them, which was totally not true — we were doing it out of care and concern for them," Koch says. "Employee testimonials became a turning point for us. But we know we're never going to win everybody over, and that's OK."

Smaller businesses are typically less likely to have the financial bandwidth to offer options such as an on-site clinic. But thanks to a recent shift to reference-based pricing, Koch and her team had saved the organization about $1 million in 2021 — which was reinvested in the startup cost of the clinic.

In January of 2024, HMI will expand its coverage to two days a week as well as begin to offer pharmacy services. Koch recognizes it's not a strategy made possible for each and every company of HMI's size, but she does emphasize that there are a number of options available to employers that could be providing the same kind of support for their workforce, like partnering with nearby clinics. 

"What employers need to realize is that the health care system is broken and employees are continuing to pay more and getting less for health care," Koch says. "So it's incumbent upon every employer to consider options outside of a traditional health care system really for the well being of their employees. It's not a concept that is too good to be true."