Hartford City Hall has a new perk: a health clinic. As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, the goal is to improve employee health and to save money.
Across the country, health care providers, insurers, employers, and politicians say they are trying to make it easier to be healthy. It's even one of the cornerstones of the controversial Affordable Care Act, in which preventative care comes at no extra cost to the patient.
Now, Hartford City Hall is joining in -- with a 1,000 square foot clinic paid for and operated by St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. There will be a nurse there during working hours five days a week to help city and state employees, and their families, who aren't feeling well. Here's Mayor Pedro Segarra.
"What we're trying to accomplish, I think, first of all, is to make sure that our employees are healthy, that we provide resources so that they can learn how to meet any heath challenges that they may have, but also to acquire the knowledge that they need."
But it's also a way to save money. Rich Pokorski is a city benefits manager.
"We had a call yesterday from a department, and it was something minor, a bug bite, and they were referring her to the ER. And an ER cost for the City of Hartford averages around $1,100, $1,200 a visit. Whereas if the visit was here at our walk-in clinic, it's a fraction of that cost."
The clinic officially opened two weeks ago.
For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.
