By summer, Chapel Hill employees will have a new a clinic aimed at providing them with basic and preventative health care in order to cut insurance costs for the town.

The new clinic is the result of a collaboration with UNC Hospitals and would provide free services to all town employees for minor injuries and illnesses. The clinic is projected to open in May or June.

Town Manager Roger Stancil said the goal of the collaboration is to increase preventative care through risk assessment to reduce future costs.

“If we can have a healthier workforce and reduce our medical claims, then we can reduce our medical insurance costs in the future,” Stancil said.

Stancil said the clinic will initially be open only to employees, but he hopes to expand its use for families since health care costs for dependents are a large portion of total costs.

“You have to be inventive in bad economic times like these, when we don’t have the revenues we usually have and costs just keep going up,” Chapel Hill Business Management Director Ken Pennoyer said. “UNC Health Care is an amazing resource, and they’re right next door so there’s a really good incentive to make this work for us.”

Ronald Lingley, associate chair for administration in the UNC Department of Family Medicine, is one of the UNC administrators collaborating with the town on the clinic.

He said officials are currently creating a comprehensive plan for how the clinic will function.

Lingley said the clinic will offer ready-care services for employees with minor injuries or non-emergency illnesses, as well as blood tests for pre-diabetes conditions. He hopes the clinic will eventually be able to treat up to 30 people a day.

“Programs like this are one of the proven ways to help improve the health and wellness of employees,” Lingley said. “Most folks don’t take the time to pay attention to their health, and this will provide easy access to help them get their health under control.”

Lingley said there will also be an education aspect to the clinic, teaching employees about healthy lifestyles.

The clinic would be run by a nurse practitioner hired through UNC Hospitals, whom Stancil hopes to hire by May 1.

Stancil said the town has not decided on a location for the clinic but is looking at town-owned buildings like Town Hall. Officials are also considering a mobile clinic or a UNC Hospitals facility, although he said this would be less convenient for employees and would probably only be temporary.

Lingley said convenience is crucial, since the goal is to maximize employees’ use of the programs.

Stancil said he is unsure of the cost of the clinic, since there is no definite location yet. The costs might be divided among town departments, or may be funded by the department of Human Resource Development entirely.

“This clinic is an innovative approach to managing the health of the employees while also managing insurance costs,” Stancil said.

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