Silver Dollar City Attractions announces medical center for employees

That's kind of cool. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come...what with insurance rates these days. It might just be cheaper to open your own clinic than to buy a plan for your employees.

There goes the end of calling in sick:)

This is a fantastically great idea. According to the corporate site, they provide seasonal health insurance---this clinic is a great way to encourage more preventative care, and I would assume also allows them to significantly lower their health insurance premiums as well.

Kudos!

At face value this would appear to be a good thing. I can reluctantly predict some future problems though. First there is the liability issue. When the company physician misses a major diagnoses, they have opened themselves up to many a lawsuit opportunity. The second problem is the very nature of health care. As the costs exponentially rise, employees will demand perfect care at cheap prices…doctor of their choice, etc. This type of stuff is always played out in the media as “big-bad-company” screwing the little guy. Nothing makes a better sound-bite than Tilt-A Whirl operator complaining that he can’t provide medicine for his family…and it is the fault of the company clinic.

I can only guess that the company believes it can save premium costs by becoming the primary care provider. This is fine until somebody decides they want a second opinion and surmises that the company may not have their best wishes at heart.

I’m sure they have thought of all the benefits and drawbacks to taking such a step. I hope it works out for the best and the employees appreciate what the company is trying to do. My studies of human nature leave doubt.

Providing healthcare is a public relations and economic maze that confuses those of us in the business. For an amusement park company, this certainly would seem to be an area that they might be getting in over their heads.

I hope I am wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that this will not last long. This is one of those good intentions cases…

Because this is the same thing Wal-Mart is trying to do because of pressure to offer some sort of health coverage, I'm going to assume that Silver Dollar City employees are not offered healthcare right now. With 2300 employees it is more cost effective however, one doctor only and they're paying the same co-pay I do with my PPO. I wouldn't be happy with this if I were them. It is better than nothing but, not much better.*** This post was edited by RollerCoastin!!!! 2/5/2007 9:45:18 PM ***

This program has been going on at Dollywood for 7 years.

http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070207/COLUMNISTS17/702070335/1087/NEWS01