Employee Wellness : Employer Wellness Becomes CEO Delimma – How to Reduce Workplace Health Expenses

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to promote Fortune 1000 employers to consider making workforce health a CEO concern and adopt strategies to reward prevention and wellness. After several years of double-digit rate increases for healthcare insurance, employers are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have employees take more responsibility for both costs and health choices. A majority of employers surveyed feel that the best way for lowering costs is financial rewards and incentives to promote employees to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Nearly 100% of employers surveyed say that health costs will be a critical or important concern over the next five years, according to a survey by United Benefit Advisors. More employers are adopting higher deductible health plans with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and expanded disease management programs in order to control ever-increasing medical costs.

Failure to deal with these problems could be disastrous for a business. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer of Alegent Health recently stated, “I think that we have built a healthcare machinery we can’t afford. I think we are choking the economic engine of America.” In his October 2005 newsletter, Dr. Andrew Weil stated, “I think rising health- care expenditures are becoming the big economic concern in our nation”. Obesity expenditures California organizations billions of dollars each year. Projected expenditures for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect healthcare expenditures, worker’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced one of the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

According to California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it is an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people do not even realize that they are obese, which is defined as only 20 percent above normal weight. There is a great need for additional education on weight and resulting diseases, and the worksite is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can result in a valuable return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although many organizations have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing. In many cases, the healthier workers participated for incentives, such as gym memberships, but those who necessitated it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way. Businesses are looking at ways to advocate more workers to buy into the wellness movement.

A new webinar hosted by Human Resource Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing Group titled, “Healthier staff members; Healthier Bottom Line: Engaging staff members is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home. This session provided actionable advice on how organizations are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on employee program engagement. It also highlighted how you can establish an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential effect for your business.

Employers can simply no longer disregard the concern of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to lower health expenditures, absenteeism and lost productivity. staff members also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and professional lives. The alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the corporation.