YAKIMA, Wash.-- The city of Yakima opened
their brand new employee healthcare clinic today.
The clinic will provide city employees
with check ups and prescriptions.
The city believes it's the first local
government to open its own in-house clinic.
City leaders decided to open the clinic
to cut down on the 11 million dollars they spend on healthcare costs every
year.
"We've set up a program where we pay
the doctors direct, we pay the fees direct, we buy the meds direct.. And then we
don't have to pay any markup whatsoever," says Deputy Human Resources
Director Cheryl Ann Mattia.
The city expects the clinic will save
them nearly two million dollars over the next three years.
A Montana-based company called miCare
will operate the clinic and Memorial Hospital will provide the medical staff.
