Mountaire opens Health and Wellness Center
Healthcare costs are rising nationwide, but employees at Mountaire Farms can rest a little easier, with a new Health and Wellness Center now available at their workplace.
Millsboro’s poultry facility opened the wellness center April 1. Employees and their immediate families can use the center at no cost, if they are eligible for benefits under Mountaire’s healthcare plan. This includes workers from the Millsboro and Selbyville locations.
Concentra, a national healthcare provider, will operate the center.
The 1,600-square-foot facility features two exam rooms, a laboratory, consultation room, nurse’s station, waiting room and a conference room.
Nurse practitioners or primary care physicians can administer physical exams, treat chronic illness and provide preventative and ongoing disease management.
The four-person staff can also view X-rays and administer antibiotics, creams, trial medications and 10-day supplies of nonnarcotics.
The center is computer-based with no paper records. All employee records are stored electronically for fast access within the center. However, the information is in external databases, not in the computers, to protect privacy in the event of a break-in.
Mountaire’s “family-oriented” owners in Little Rock, Ark., initiated the idea for on-site professional healthcare for employees and families, said Michael Tirrell, vice president of Human Resources and Business Services.
“Corporate America has recognized the need for on-site facility,” said Tirrel.
The plan was in development for about one year. The company broke ground at the first of the year, and the facility opened in April.
Tirrel said not many poultry facilities have similar health centers, to his knowledge. Compared with other corporate health centers, he said he heard that Mountaire has a higher employee participation rate.
“We’re not trying to make it fee-based,” Tirrel said, so only eligible employees with a Mountaire healthcare plan have access to the center.
The majority of Millsboro’s 3,400 employees are eligible, plus dependents and Selbyville’s workers, said benefits supervisor Sandra Hernandez. Few people opt-out of benefits, but using the center is not mandatory.
Hernandez said she heard the Health and Wellness Center is running smoothly so far and has begun biometric scans to test for medical conditions.
The center is a “unique way to provide healthcare to people who couldn’t get it,” said Stasie Broughton of Concentra. “To me, what Mountaire has done has worth. It’s just so important.”
For a regular doctor visit, an employee might wait several weeks just to get an appointment. Then he would have to miss work.
Now employees can simply cross the street during working hours for an appointment.
The Health and Wellness Center is located adjacent to the Route 24 Mountaire employee parking lot. The hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, to accommodate all work shifts.
“All the employees are excited,” said Hernandez. “This is convenient for them. They can just walk over.”
