Employer-sponsored care presents a number of benefits: better availability, convenience and quality of primary care, all of which can prevent utilization of higher cost services.

SpaceX, a company known for its revolution of space technology, is attempting to modernize another largely untraversed arena — employer-sponsored primary care.

A new peer-reviewed study from Collective Health and One Medical, published in JAMA Network Open, examines the impact of SpaceX's holistic health care program, which integrates on-site, employer-sponsored health clinics with near-site and virtual primary care. Among the treatment group (those with more than 50% of their primary care visits at on-site or near-site clinics), total health care costs were 45% lower than costs for a comparable population receiving traditional community-based care — the equivalent of $167 per member per month (PMPM). The cost savings were due to lower utilization of downstream care categories such as emergency care, hospital visits and prescription medications.

(Note: several of the study's authors reported receiving fees from One Medical or its affiliates, or from Collective Health, which sells One Medical memberships to employers.)