Workplace Health

Imagine leaving your office at 1:50 p.m. to make a 2 p.m. doctor’s appointment. Seattle-based Vera Whole Health (206.395.7870; verawholehealth.com) is helping make such impossible-sounding scheduling a reality—by bringing medical clinics to people at their workplace. The health care company partners with local businesses to build on-site clinics that Vera staffs and runs with a full-time medical team. Employees get unlimited access to primary, preventive and urgent care, sans the inconvenience of adding transit time to already time-consuming medical appointments. Employees can continue to see their primary care doctor as well. The concept is a response to the ongoing implementation of various pieces of the Affordable Care Act, says Vera spokesperson Peter Li—at $45 per employee per month, it’s an affordable way for companies to deliver the ACA’s “essential benefit” requirements or to lower already existing health care insurance costs. So far, Seattle Children’s and Group Health are among the companies that have signed on for Vera’s on-site clinics.