Healthcare. It can be a luxury for most people unless they are connected to the right employer.

This is such an issue in the United States that over 100 million Americans do not have a primary care doctor.

If you are an employer, you are likely reading this to try to get a leg up on your competition. Well, one thing that the average employee will appreciate is direct and affordable access to healthcare.

What are the biggest benefits of giving employees access to direct primary care? How will this help you retain employees?

This guide will answer those questions and more.

Reduced Premiums

One big benefit for employees that take an employer’s healthcare plan is that they will likely not have to worry about healthcare premiums nearly as much as before. What this means is that on their own, they would likely be paying for the entire premium.

However, with an employer, there is a good chance that the employer either covers a large part of the premium or the entire premium. This could end up saving an employee hundred or even thousands of dollars.

The average American pays $560 per month in healthcare premiums. That adds up to over $6,000 per year.

Let’s say that an employer is willing to cover 80% of the premium costs for their employees. In this example, we will assume that the employee is paying about $6,000 per year in premiums. That means that the employer would cover about $4,800 worth of premium expenses for one employee for one year.

For some employees, this can be a big game-changer to have an extra $4,800 in their pocket after a year. When those employees start to think about that, they may be more hesitant to leave your company. This is especially the case if the other employer will not match the healthcare premium coverage.

You can make it less tempting for employees to leave just by helping out with their healthcare expenses.

More Facetime with Doctors

Another benefit for employees under this healthcare plan is that they are likely going to get more facetime with their doctors. Most people that go visit a doctor want to be heard. They want to know that somebody is listening and they would like somebody to give them the time to help solve their health issue.

Well, there is a much better chance of achieving that feeling of satisfaction with direct primary care. The reason for this is that it is a membership program. As a result, these doctors are going to have fewer patients in their panel. This means that they will have more time to spend with each individual patient because they are not getting stretched thin.

What does this mean as an employer? It means that your employees are more likely to have a positive experience with their doctors. When that happens, they can see the healthcare access they have as a real perk to staying with your company.

Then, employees may think twice about leaving your company and as a result, you will gain a higher retention rate as an employer.

Giving Children Healthcare

When employers give employees a chance to join their healthcare plan, that typically is not limited to just that employee. It tends to include every immediate member of their family.

For employees that have a child or even multiple children, this can be a huge deal. As stated above, healthcare premiums can get expensive.

While it is true that children are allowed to be on their parent’s healthcare plan until they are 26, that does not mean that every parent can afford their own healthcare plan.

In the United States, nearly four million children under the age of 19 do not have health insurance. That means they could be missing critical healthcare to their development.

This includes keeping up with annual shots that they need, visiting a doctor when a child gets sick, having regular visits to the dentist, and more. Giving an employee with children access to this for next to no cost on their end can change their life.

As an employer, the benefit for you here is that now, employees have to think about their children as well before they consider changing jobs. It can be hard for a parent to go back to a life where their children’s healthcare coverage is not guaranteed.

In all likelihood, you have now limited their other prospects only to other companies that can also provide healthcare for their children.

Quicker Access

People that are dependent on the public healthcare system to provide them access to doctors and physicians usually have to wait a long time to get that access. This can be anything from the amount of time they have to wait in the waiting room to how soon they can book a doctor’s appointment, how long it takes to get their medication, and more.

The point is that for some people, the public healthcare system is too long of a wait for them. Not everybody can afford to wait that long for certain health issues.

Imagine spending a couple of hours waiting for a doctor to see and treat you only to not get the results that you need. Admittedly, there is nothing that can be done about some issues. However, for other issues, it comes down to the number of patients some doctors have to see.

Having access to primary care allows employees and their families to go see a doctor as soon as an issue comes up. Often times, they can even get an appointment on the same day.

If an employee knows what it was like to wait for a doctor in their old system, they will likely not want to know what that feels like again.

Reduce Stress

Health status can easily affect someone’s stress. This is especially true if they are trouble accessing the healthcare that they need or they are having trouble paying for it.

Affordability can be a stress point on its own because of how much healthcare premiums cost in America. However, even if they are paying a lot of money from their own pocket, these employees would at least like to have timely access to see a doctor.

It is safe to assume that if employees had regular access to doctors and did not have to think about covering primary care costs, those would be two stressful things that are now out of their head.

This would be a good thing for employees considering how many people already feel stressed on their own. About 33% of people in the United States report feeling extreme stress.

The numbers only get worse when you start to see how this stress affects health. About 77% of people have this impact their physical health and about 73% of people have this impact their mental health.

That is not good considering that this does not even dive into how a job can make somebody feel stressed.

The point here is that as an employer, you want to do anything within reason to help your employees feel less stressed. Covering their access to decent healthcare is a big thing you can do to help with this.

Flexible Options

With access to direct primary care, you may have more flexible options than you realize. One thing that you can provide your employees is access to doctors virtually.

Yes, it does help that technology is evolving and virtual calls are getting more and more normalized. However, this does not mean that everyone has access to a doctor on a virtual call at the click of a button.

Well, if an employer gives employees access to direct primary care, this can change. These doctors likely have less patients that can get in the way and they may be more flexible when it comes to taking a virtual call.

For example, let’s say an employee is not feeling well at home. They wake up early in the day and call out of work because they are too sick to leave their house.

Instead of having to go out and drive to the doctor’s office, you can make a virtual appointment on your cellphone. Then, you just must show up for the video call and explain your symptoms to your doctor.

This works best for people that have basic cold symptoms or another straightforward acute issue. That can be a 24/7 bug, the flu, a sinus infection, and more.

Having this option for employees can make their lives easier and can even get them the help they need faster.

Exploring More Healthcare Options

Employees that never had their basic healthcare covered may have never thought about what else can be covered under certain healthcare plans. What if an employee could suddenly get coverage for these things?

An example can be an employee that wishes to see a therapist to talk about their mental health. If they have to pay their healthcare premiums on their own, they may have ruled that out in the past because of how much money it costs.

What if that was provided to an employee? In that situation, employees are much more likely to go speak to a therapist if they have the desire to do so.

This can lead to a significant improvement in mental health for your employees. It may help them find the balance in their life that they never knew they needed.

Therapists are not the only thing that employees can do here. There are also alternative wellness programs that employees can start discovering.

One example is getting into meditation. Certain healthcare plans have meditation programs covered there.

What this means is that employees that may have never thought about experimenting with meditation may do so now because it is covered under their healthcare plan. This all results in employees having more options and more resources to look after their own health.

Feeling Heard

Finally, employees sometimes just like to feel like their voice is heard. If they are seen as just another number, they may start to believe that the company they work for would not miss them if they quit tomorrow.

Well, providing a legitimate healthcare plan to employees can help make them feel heard. It is safe to assume that employees that go to work do not want to have to worry about covering basic needs at the end of a workday. Healthcare certainly falls under basic needs.

You see other companies these days trying to skirt around this by offering employees things such as a pizza party occasionally and giving them a ping pong table in the break room.

Sure, that work environment may be a little more fun. However, it does not cover basic needs that employees have such as healthcare.

So, while they may eat a slice of pizza with these other companies, they still have to go home and potentially worry about how they are going to cover their healthcare premium.

Employees with primary care access may feel like their real needs are being met and show loyalty to the company that gave them that access.

Retain Employees

These are some of the reasons why providing employees with primary care access can help retain employees. It takes away significant costs not only to those individuals but any potential dependents that they have.

On top of this, if you get the right healthcare plan, it can even encourage a healthier lifestyle with healthcare options such as meditation and speaking to a therapist.

Do you want to provide this medical care to your employees? Sign up with us today to start doing just that.