BRIGHAM CITY — Monica Witt will no longer have to endure lengthy waits if either of her two young children need to see a a doctor.
Witt, a process engineer technician at Autoliv, will simply need to whisk them to a new First Choice Healthcare Center, on-site at the 1,300-employee Autoliv facility here.
"It's going to be wonderful," Witt said Thursday when the clinic was unveiled. "My husband is self-employed, so he doesn't carry health insurance, so for our family, this is great. ... And it's so convenient here. I'm a working mother, so if I get a phone call while I'm here and my child is sick, I can run right over here and make an appointment and bring them in. It's just a lot more convenient."
The new clinic in Brigham City will be available to Autoliv employees and their dependents beginning Monday, and a similar facility will open in Ogden in November. Both centers will be staffed by a physician, a nurse practitioner and a medical assistant. Each clinic will serve people at three Autoliv facilities — the company has about 3,600 workers in northern Utah.
The Brigham City medical center occupies about 1,500 square feet with four exam rooms, an office, reception/waiting area and lab, plus 800 square feet for physical therapy. It represents a $250,000 investment for the automotive safety products developer and manufacturer, which will partner with third-party health service providers.
But Kris Bessinger, senior director of human relations for Autoliv North America, said the company is expecting to save money on employee health-care costs — she declined to disclose how much — and that the center is not designed to replace current company health insurance plans or the need for other health-care treatment at local hospitals and surgical centers.
"What it does do is allow us to ease the burden of accessible health care for our employees and their families by offering low-cost basic health and wellness services at the work site, regardless of an employee's insurance status," she said.
The company hopes the centers will help detect serious health problems early, reduce overall health-care costs for both the company and the employees, and help reduce absenteeism and turnover while boosting morale and productivity.
A long-term goal is to have employees practice good health habits, she said. "We are convinced that these on-site clinics, coupled with ongoing wellness programs, will create a win-win situation for Autoliv and our employees," Bessinger said.
Mike Ward, president of Autoliv North America, said in a prepared statement that the centers underscore Autoliv's commitment "to a proactive, personal approach to health care. ... Based on early feedback from our employees, we can see that our employees are enthusiastic about using the services provided by the new centers, and that we are taking important steps toward improving the health of our work force while managing costs."
Mont Didericksen of service provider Total Rehab said the center is not intended to replace employees' existing health insurance or replace outside care providers, "but we want people to come in and take advantage of the convenience."
"I think Autoliv's goal is to not only manage costs now, but really improve the health and wellness of employees for the future, focusing on prevention and not just treatment," he said. "We just want to get people healthier."
Royal Thackeray, a technical support engineer for Autoliv, said his single-income, five-children family is always looking to shrink its health-care costs, just like any business or corporation.
Such costs have risen during the past five or six years, "so this (center) will be a great advantage to us, to actually take our health-care costs back to where they were about four years ago."
Without the center, his family would need to tighten its budget in other areas. "This (center) will let us be more apt to go get health care when we need it and have less concern about the costs of the health care when we need it," he said. "It's always nice to not have to stress so much about coping with the costs when a child gets a cold or a sinus infection or something like that."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com