LAS VEGAS - December 28, 2008
More than 2,000 employees at New York-New York hotel casino are getting a surprise holiday gift.

A partnership between MGM-Mirage and Canyon Gate Medical Group, which is basically a medical concierge. The pilot program started at New York-New York last month.

The clinic is open to all New York-New York employees. They can get flu shots for free and get their blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked along with getting any medical questions answered.

There is no co-pay and the best part perhaps is the easy access. For New York-New York employee James Healey he didn't have to think twice about taking advantage of something like this.

Now there are 53,000 employees on the Strip employed by MGM-Mirage they will all have the option of going to any one of the three Canyon Gate Medical Group clinics in the valley.

"The changed Stark rules make it far easier for physicians in our community to adopt an electronic health record, especially those in smaller practices who may have felt they can't afford this technology or would have difficulty implementing it alone," said Kent Stahl, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Hartford Medical Group. "We're looking forward to expanding our existing Allscripts implementation and building a 'virtual care network' with the other physicians affiliated with Hartford HealthCare Corporation."

All in all MGM-Mirage says there's a lot of potential for the clinic to expand to other locations. They want to make sure their employees are healthy and not intimidated to get the help they need.