Wellness Programs

While we’ve talked about some cutting edge programs like medical tourism in previous columns, and this topic is not quite so exotic, but would potentially be used by many more people if employers only knew about them.

One of the biggest costs with health insurance is that people use it. You may be saying to yourself, well of course they are. They’re paying for it! Which is entirely true. Inevitably in my experience, I hear people say that if they are going to pay for health insurance, by darn they are going to use it. Consider for a moment however, other insurances. I’ve yet to hear a client say the same thing about their auto insurance, home insurance, or life insurance. Those insurances typically have a proactive component, like driving carefully, maintaining your home, taking care of yourself—in effect, doing everything you can to avoid using it.
 
What if health insurance could do the same thing? Overall, the health insurance industry is primarily a "disease management" organization. They will treat you once you are sick or hurt. Helping people to avoid getting sick or hurt would be a smarter way to go in my opinion. HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) had the right idea, but stopped short of actually endorsing wellness and having a program in place to encourage wellness, choosing instead to offer lower co-payments to encourage participants to see the doctor earlier for diagnosis rather than waiting until a disease has advanced. It still did nothing to encourage people to give up the habits and lifestyle that contributed to these illnesses.

Thankfully, some companies recognized that a better way to reduce cost was to help people to be healthier! They put together what are collectively called “Corporate Wellness Programs,” the idea being to create a corporate wellness culture. Since a working American spends more time in the workplace than with their own families, it made sense to implement it in a workplace setting. It works for the employers because with healthier employees, productivity goes up, worker’s compensation claims go down and health insurance rates go down. It works for the employees because of the "feel good" factor, the camaraderie involved, company incentives and the very real physiological and psychological changes that typically result.

Generally, wellness programs start off by ascertaining the individual health of each participant. This is the "before" snapshot which the participant receives in the form of a very comprehensive risk assessment. People that are high risk typically will be contacted to discuss the findings and find ways to reduce their risk factors. That can be in the form of tobacco cessation support, dietetic counseling, stress reduction methods, or personal training to name a few. Those that aren’t immediately deemed high risk are invited to participate in the program. Support through posters in the work place, health fairs, contests and incentives help to keep employees motivated. Various aggregate reports are sent to the employer on a scheduled basis so that they can track the general health of their workforce and allow them to target certain areas that are counter-productive. The term ‘aggregate’ refers to a general report instead of a detailed health report on each employee because of privacy laws. Studies have shown that the impact on employees and employers are extreme, typically 7-1. Put another way, for the cost the employer pays for the program, they recover seven times that amount in lost productivity, lost work time, sick days, family medical leave act (most programs allow immediate family to participate), workers’ compensation claims and reduced health insurance premiums.

So while we may or may not see the promised ‘changes’ after the elections are over, corporate wellness programs show great promise in bringing about very real change.

Until next time, stay healthy!