Archived Content

Driving Innovation In the Health Care Marketplace:

A CEO Report

Peabody Energy Corporation

Peabody Energy takes great pride in our mission of being a leading global supplier of reliable energy solutions that enable prosperity and a better quality of life. Our more than 8,000 employees live this mission, and Peabody invests in their safety, health and wellness. 

One of the compelling examples of this commitment is the Coalition Family Health Center, a primary care clinic and pharmacy built and funded by Peabody in partnership with two other employers. The center was created in response to a chronic physician shortage in the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming, where Peabody operates several mines. Employees and their family members often visited emergency rooms for routine needs after being unable to find adequate primary medical care. Since opening the center in late 2008, the company has recorded double-digit increases in employee primary care and wellness visits, and hospital and emergency room use has sharply declined. Peabody also pioneered another unconventional method to improve health outcomes and costs for our Wyoming-based workforce. Working with our third-party administrator, the company encourages employees to visit nationally ranked hospital programs in a variety of specialties, providing reimbursement for travel and lodging. Although treatment at world-class facilities can be expensive, the company ultimately saves by reducing misdiagnoses, complications and repeat procedures. 

We believe that health care should not begin with medical treatment; preventative care is core to a holistic approach to health. Peabody supplements employee health care coverage with subsidies for fitness club memberships, structured health awareness activities and $150 reimbursements for routine physical examinations. The company built a fitness center in 2011 at our St. Louis, MO, headquarters, which logged 17,000 visits in 2013 alone and offers a tobacco-cessation program that has been achieving a high 44 percent quit rate since 2010. 

In 2015, Peabody expects to launch a new health care benefits framework — the Healthy Rewards Plan — to sustain health care offerings that provide good value at an affordable cost. With Healthy Rewards, Peabody’s employees will be able to take greater accountability for their personal health, addressing unhealthy behaviors that drive cost and enabling the company to continue to offer high-quality, competitive coverage. 

Few companies have the privilege of playing a critical role in the lives of millions of people each day. Peabody is proud to provide a product that is essential to our modern world and foster a culture of safety, health and wellness for thousands of people. 

Companies

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BRT companies provide health coverage to more than 40 million Americans. We help American workers and their families remain healthy, receive quality treatment when necessary and achieve better health outcomes. The private-sector innovations in the insurance marketplace that enable us to provide these services to our employees and their families serve as models for public programs — but additional reforms are necessary.

This report highlights the innovations we have made and the public policy changes we believe would drive value by promoting health and improving outcomes.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/0_healthcare/BRT-Health-Care.pdf

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