How Onsite Medical Clinics Increase Employee Wellness
Having an onsite clinic greatly benefits your business. From reducing your overall healthcare costs and instances of work-related injuries to increasing recruitment and employee retention, offering your employees access to healthcare at your job site has many positive impacts on your company.
But the benefits of onsite clinics aren’t limited to your business. Your employees will see positive results from easier access to health professionals in a variety of ways.
Reduce Absenteeism
Healthy employees are less likely to miss work for illnesses, and they’re less likely to get injured on the job. This translates into fewer instances of absenteeism for you and an improved ability for your employees to use their PTO to rest and rejuvenate before coming back to work.
Lower absenteeism rates help you and your team better plan employee scheduling and reduces the need to call in off-shift workers or resort to short-term substitutes to meet your production goals. In turn, this leads to greater productivity and profitability for your business.
Support Health Goals
Staying healthy is a process that includes a commitment to reducing stress, eating nourishing foods and getting regular exercise. Finding the time to practice these healthy habits can be difficult for workers who must balance a full-time work schedule with the other aspects of their lives, such as children, care for aging parents and hobbies.
With an onsite clinic, your workers have easy access to professionals who can help guide them through various aspects of their wellness journeys. This support may not even take the shape of formal appointments. Your employees could have casual conversations with clinic staff, and those conversations could help workers take the steps they need to lead a healthier life.
Add Layer of Observation
When workers are struggling, either physically or mentally, they are less likely to be productive and are more likely to take time off work. But it’s almost impossible for you to keep tabs on the health and wellbeing of all your employees all the time. This makes it more likely that employees slip through the cracks and a problem that could have been corrected turns into an emergency.
Having onsite clinic staff who can regularly check in with your employees creates a trusted relationship between staff and your employees. When one of your employees has a concern about themselves or a colleague, they will be more likely to share their concerns with the clinic staff, resulting in overall better outcomes.
Encourage More Frequent Care
Accessing quality healthcare can be time-consuming and frustrating. There’s the time spent finding the right provider, calling their insurance about coverage, making an appointment, traveling to the office and waiting to see the doctor. For many workers, this hassle means they delay care until it’s an emergency, which isn’t ideal for their overall health.
Easy access to medical providers, even for casual questions, can make the difference between your employees receiving the care they need to be healthy and productive and them delaying care and getting sick. Additionally, when a worker does get ill or injured on the job, having immediate care removes the barrier to treatment that may exist for those worried about the time and expense of seeking care in the emergency room or an urgent care facility.
Improve Work-Life Balance
Because it can be a logistical nightmare to schedule and attend doctor appointments in the middle of the workday, many people simply don’t see a doctor when they should. This means that health conditions that could benefit from early intervention and minor treatments may not be caught until they become critical — or worse, chronic — and employees may need to take even more time off from work. It also means that many employees come to work sick, spreading illnesses to coworkers.
Having healthcare providers onsite, however, means your employees can be seen for their health concerns — or even a routine checkup — during their lunch break and without ever having to leave work. This makes them more likely to get care before their need becomes critical, keeping them healthier and more productive long-term.
Reduce Stress
Being sick is stressful. You’re always wondering when you’ll have a bad health day, and calculating how many more hours of PTO you have to use before you have to take unpaid time to recuperate. And if you’re managing a chronic condition that requires frequent doctor appointments, juggling all the appointments with your work schedule can seem impossible.
With an onsite clinic, your employees can feel confident they’ll be able to receive care for their illnesses and injuries without having to take time off work. They can fit their appointments around their work schedules, or simply stop by the clinic if they’re feeling ill. Knowing they have easy access to healthcare professionals can relieve a lot of stress when managing a chronic health condition, making it easier for your workers to focus on their jobs.
Encourage a Culture of Health
Individual health and wellness don’t usually happen in a vacuum. They’re the result of an environment and a culture that encourages healthy habits such as getting enough sleep, drinking water and exercising regularly. And healthy employees are more productive, happier at work and less likely to need all their sick days.
While hosting wellness contests and promoting stretch breaks are great ways to encourage your employees to take care of themselves, offering a variety of options helps you get the greatest amount of buy-in from your workers in the hopes of producing the best results. Your onsite care team is a major part of fostering that culture of health, serving as a visible reminder to make the time and effort to focus on wellbeing.
Your Partner in Employee Wellness
At Medcor, promoting the health and wellness of your workers is our main concern. By offering an onsite clinic, you can help your workers get the care they need and the work-life balance they crave, all while saving your company money on healthcare costs. Speak with a Medcor advocate today.