The Company Doctor: Are corporate doctors the answer to rising health insurance costs?

A combination of both definable and intangible savings are driving more companies to open medical clinics to cope with ever-rising health care costs. Savings grow out of lower doctor fees and improved employee health. And the clinics' proximity encourages employees to visit doctors and fosters better care of conditions that can be especially expensive to treat when ignored.

'There is a massive amount of interest in them,' said David Beech, a health care consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. 'This is a way for companies to have more of a direct impact on costs.'

Doctor visits at the clinics are cheaper, and Beech said companies with clinics found their employees made one-third fewer appointments with specialists and 25 percent fewer trips to pricey urgent care centers.

I thought insurance premiums were rising because of the healthcare costs of retirees. Do they get to go to those clinics, too?