BP America wellness center convenient for employees

For the more than 8,000 BP America Inc. employees who work at the petroleum giant's Houston headquarters, primary medical care, lab work, dental care, vision care and prescription drug refills are just a short walk away.

Opened on Oct. 4, 2011, the Westlake Health and Wellness Center is a gleaming 14,000-square-foot on-site health and wellness center—developed at a cost of $6 million—that provides a world of convenience to BP employees, their families and retirees.

The facility, which is run by Take Care, a unit of Walgreen Co., has a staff of 48 health care professionals. The goal is that patients will not have to wait more than five minutes to see a caregiver, said Rick Dorazil, BP's vp-total reward, Western Hemisphere.

When BP relocated its existing child care center, Mr. Dorazil helped to convince senior management to redevelop the facility as an on-site wellness center. Mr. Dorazil said having an on-site wellness center would be mutually beneficial for employees as well as for BP. For employees, the convenience of an on-site center means less time away from work.

That convenience not only would save time for employees, it also would increase the likelihood that employees would tend to health care problems sooner, decreasing the likelihood that relatively easy-to-treat health care problems would turn into more expensive complications, Mr. Dorazil said. Having an on-site health center also would help employees navigate through the medical system, resulting in better, more appropriate care, he added.

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With operating hours of 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, the facility has more flexible hours than many doctor's offices.

For BP, the operating costs to run the facility and provide services are lower compared with what BP would have to pay when employees see other providers.

In fact, BP gives employees a financial incentive—a $10 copayment for medical services compared with a $20 copayment in BP's preferred provider organizations—to use the facility. Since the facility opened, its volume has grown to around 1,200 patients per month.

The success of the Westlake Health and Wellness Center has led BP to begin exploring its other U.S. sites for an additional facility.