Corporate Wellness Incentive Plans

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to advocate Fortune 1000 employers to consider making workforce health a CEO problem and adopt strategies to encourage prevention and wellness. After several years of double-digit rate increases for medical 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 reducing costs is financial incentives to advocate employees to adopt healthier lifestyles.

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

Failure to deal with these problems might be disastrous for a corporation. 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 costs are becoming the primary economic problem in our nation”. Obesity costs California organizations billions of dollars each year. Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect healthcare costs, worker’s compensation, and lost productiveness. 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 workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can result in a important return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although numerous corporations 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/rewards, such as gym memberships, but those who required it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way. Employers are looking at ways to advocate more workers to buy into the wellness movement.

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

Employers can no longer overlook the concern of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to cut health costs, absenteeism and lost productiveness. workers also advance 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 business.