Foundry Partners with ThedaCare

(WAUPACA, WI) Sep. 14, 2018 — Waupaca-area employees of Waupaca Foundry will be able to participate in a trend-setting program designed to make healthcare easier to access. Waupaca Foundry will partner with ThedaCare to staff a dedicated medical clinic for foundry team members and their families located in the Specialty Care Clinic in ThedaCare Medical Center-Waupaca at 800 Riverside Drive, Waupaca.

Care at the clinic will be free to foundry employees and retirees, and their dependents. Waupaca Foundry among of the first employers to offer such a comprehensive program in Waupaca County. The clinic will be a pilot project for Waupaca Foundry with the potential of rolling the benefit out company wide.

"Our goal is to provide employees with the resources to live a healthy lifestyle," said Mike Nikolai, CEO of Waupaca Foundry. "This is an added benefit for our team members that reduces or eliminates health care costs and in addition it is being provided at no cost to Waupaca Foundry employees and retirees, and their dependents."

The clinic will be staffed by advanced nurse practitioners. Services will include lifestyle medicine and wellness consults for chronic disease management such as diabetes, high blood pressure, weight, heart disease and others, urgent care, labs, care for injuries, and acute care for illness and immunizations. Providers will be able to prescribe medications if appropriate with a care philosophy to partner with patients and provide information needed to make good healthcare decisions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 75 percent of healthcare spending is due to chronic disease conditions. Those conditions are most often linked to health risks that are lifestyle related such as tobacco use, poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, and excessive alcohol consumption. Rising healthcare costs nationwide led Waupaca Foundry to establish the clinic to minimize the financial impact on employees.

"The best way to improve our health is to emphasize lifestyle changes so the focus of our clinic will be on overall wellness," said Rob Johnson, chief financial officer for Waupaca Foundry.  "Employees are not required to use the Waupaca Foundry Clinic, but this will be a convenient, no-cost option for healthcare."       

ThedaCare has established similar work-based clinics at employers throughout Wisconsin. ThedaCare at Work serves more than 29,000 unique patients encounters per year at nearly 90 onsite employer locations. "ThedaCare At Work is committed to improving the health and wellness of our employer customers and the communities their employees live in. Our onsite clinics provide convenient and coordinated access to care that address issues from acute care to lifestyle and behavioral changes with the ultimate goal of improved health and productivity, while managing overall cost of care," said Polly Elrod, ThedaCare At Work account executive.

The clinic will be open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

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