TruckPark brings healthcare to truck stops with UrgentCareTravel

Dive Brief:

TruckPark, a software app that helps drivers find parking, will offer its clients a healthcare membership program through UrgentCareTravel, the companies announced Monday. The membership includes, among other services, flu shots, health coaching and Department of Transportation physicals.
UrgentCareTravel provides medical services at its 14 clinics, located at 13 Pilot Flying J truck stops and at a Fontana, California, location. It will offer services through telehealth applications.
UrgentCareTravel's expansion at truck stops has slowed because of COVID-19. But when the pandemic lifts, the company plans to keep adding clinic locations, said Mitch Strobin, UrgentCareTravel senior vice president of marketing and relationship management.

Dive Insight:

Forty-eight percent of drivers have at least one condition that limits their CDL to one year or less, Strobin said. That makes health management vital to address. Achieving better health isn't too difficult, Strobin said, if drivers have accessibility and affordability.

Parking can inhibit accessibility. Strobin said the hunt for just one space for one healthcare visit can cost a driver hours. Accessibility to drivers and parking are the main reasons that UrgentCareTravel decided to locate at truck stops or, as with Fontana, near heavy trucking traffic.

The truck-stop strategy has worked well since UrgentCareTravel opened in 2014 with one clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, Strobin said. The company has adopted other strategies, including a mail-order prescription service, which can mail pills to the driver's home or to an UrgentCareTravel clinic.

Diet has become very important in consultations with drivers, Strobin said. The conditions that often dog drivers are caused or aggravated by bad diets, he said. The healthcare providers come up with a doable plan for drivers, and even the exercise plan for drivers, who are often on the road for months, can be worked out simply, Strobin said.

"If you walk around your truck 32 times, that equals a mile," said Strobin. "We are trying to make it a reality-based program."

The list price for the program is $100 per month, per driver, but TruckPark will get an unspecified discount for their clients. UrgentCareTravel announced a similar program with ERoad, a fleet-performance software company, in August.