A new report claims Tesla's on-site health clinic at its Fremont, Calif. factory routinely denies care to employees and is instead designed to minimize worker injury reports, according to The Mercury News.
Here are five things to know:
1. A Nov. 5 report by Reveal, which is affiliated with the Center for Investigative Reporting, cites worker-status reports and current and former Tesla healthcare employees, including individuals associated with Fremont-based Access Omnicare, the healthcare provider that took over Tesla's employee clinics in June, Business Insider reports.
2. The Reveal report claims medical workers at the Tesla factory are not allowed to call 911 without a physician's permission, and that the company routinely calls ride-share providers like Lyft to take employees to the hospital instead of ambulances to decrease costs and avoid having 911 calls from the factory become public record, The Mercury News reports.
3. A Tesla spokesperson forwarded The Mercury News a statement from Basil Besh, MD, a hand surgeon and owner of Access Omnicare. Dr. Besh said, "Any suggestion that myself or any of my medical team at AOC allow external factors to influence our medical care in any way is false and inaccurate." He also pushed back against claims Tesla employees are discouraged from calling 911, stating "all members of my team are empowered to call 911 for any limb or life-threatening condition."
4. In a separate statement to Teslarati, Dr. Besh said he spent "nearly one hour" with a reporter from Reveal explaining Access Omnicare's partnership with the company.
"I patiently educated [Reveal reporter] Will Evans on how Tesla allowed me to give the same care to Tesla employees that I do to my private patients including ones who are professional athletes, with the ability to get necessary testing and treatment in a timely manner without being hindered by an often cumbersome California Worker's [sic] Compensation System that sometimes negatively effects [sic] injured workers," Dr. Besh said.
"As a physician, my foremost obligation is to perform a careful history and physical examination, order additional tests when clinically indicated, make an accurate diagnosis, and deliver the absolute best care possible. If patients are injured, and continued work presents safety issues for the patient, myself and my fellow physicians prescribe the appropriate work restrictions," he added.
5. Tesla has previously faced scrutiny over the safety and treatment of its workers. The company is also reportedly being sued by injured former workers, including a foreign contractor, The Mercury News reports.