Why one Iowa-based company opened a primary care clinic near its office

People who see primary care physicians on a regular basis tend to have lower overall health costs, but the number of doctors who provide these services has dwindled in recent years. Over 100 million Americans encountered challenges accessing primary care as of 2023, according to a report from the National Association of Community Health Centers, nearly double the share who faced these barriers in 2014.

Some employers are investing in on- or near-site primary care clinics to address this access gap. Pella Corporation, a window and door manufacturer based out of Pella, Iowa, is one such company.

“Many people actually don’t take advantage and have a primary care physician,” said John Bollman, Pella’s CHRO. “We’re making it convenient, easy for our team members to be able to take advantage” of these services, he told HR Brew.

At the end of December, Pella soft-opened a wellness center five minutes from the company’s headquarters. Employees based in and around Pella can access services including primary care, behavioral health, and a pharmacy at the center.

How Pella’s wellness center came together. Pella’s wellness center is part of a long-term strategy dating back to 2024 that seeks to improve the overall health of the employee population, enhance their healthcare experience, and deliver cost savings for both workers and the company.

Bollman and his colleagues had been discussing the possibility of investing in a health clinic on or near the office for a number of years, but said it “finally made sense to be able to do it” in alignment with this strategy.

Pella partnered with Premise Health, a direct healthcare provider based out of Nashville, to develop the wellness center. The facility came together in less than a year, according to Bollman.

After analyzing data from Pella’s 2,500 employees, Premise Health recommended that they offer an advanced primary care model at the center, with a care team that could address workers’ physical, mental, and social health needs, said Chief Operating Officer Beth Ratliff. In designing a facility like the one Pella recently opened, Premise Health aims to deliver care in a way that’s “both high touch and high tech,” Ratliff said. Workers should easily be able to access same- or next-day appointments, either on-site or virtually, and experience minimal wait times.

This approach “removes the friction that sometimes is associated with a member trying to get care,” she added.

Pella employees who are enrolled in one of the company’s health plans through Anthem or Centivo pay between $0 and $30 for a wellness center visit, according to figures shared via email by Bollman and his team.

Running the numbers. A central goal of the on- or near-site health centers that Premise Health helps employers open is cost control. Many of the company’s clients are large, self-funded employers that “have been experiencing dramatic year over year increases in their costs, and they are at a point where they can no longer continue to absorb those costs or shift this cost to their people,” Ratliff said.

These rising health costs present “not just a benefits issue, but truly an earnings issue” for employers, she added.

Premise Health digs into electronic medical record and health claims data to evaluate whether on- or near-site care is driving cost savings for its clients. In 2024 the organization estimates that employers and unions saved 30% on the total cost of care for members and dependents who had access to an on- or near-site Premise Health center, compared to those who didn’t. Such savings are driven by reductions in costly types of care, such as inpatient hospital admissions or emergency room visits, as well as an increase in preventative and routine care visits.

The success of employer-sponsored health clinics varies based on factors like utilization and employer size, separate research shows. A 2025 analysis of worksite health centers found larger companies tended to see a greater return-on-investment. Higher use rates and longer duration of these centers contributed to better ROI, too.

ROI grows “with more use of the center, with our ability to really engage with those high-cost, high-risk members more over time,” Ratliff said.

Bollman said his team at Pella was confident that with “the right level of utilization and getting more proactive as it relates to people’s focus on their overall wellness, then over the long term, this is going to enable us to drive savings.”

Given that employer health premiums are expected to rise by upwards of 9% this year, simply staying flat on overall healthcare costs could potentially save Pella “millions of dollars,” Bollman suggested.