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December 2006 — Vol. 84, No. 10

COVER STORY

Promoting wellness in the workplace

It’s one way to improve health care costs, productivity

Related articles:

Take a walk around your workplace. What, besides work projects, do you see on employees’ desks? Candy? Cookies? Soda?

What kinds of snacks and beverages can workers buy in your cafeteria or vending machines? What foods do you serve at meetings?

Does your workforce include a lot of smokers? Exercise avoiders?

Do you have a high absenteeism rate?

The answers just might tip you off to one way you might combat the rising cost of providing employee health benefits.

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, unhealthy lifestyle habits and modifiable risk factors account for at least 25% of employers’ health care costs.

It’s not surprising, then, that many employers, with help from their insurance carriers, now offer workplace wellness programs designed to help employees quit smoking, lose weight, manage stress, get preventive care or adopt other healthful behaviors.

Wellness is “becoming more of a workplace issue,” notes Steven Sell, chief strategy and business development officer for Health Net. “Our customers are asking us to take advantage of the fact that people spend a lot of time at work” by offering them workplace-based wellness programs.

“Virtually all large companies are offering wellness programs,” says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health. Companies, she says, are telling employees, “We want to do what we can to help you stay healthy, or get healthy if you aren’t already.”

Evidence is beginning to show that wellness, prevention and chronic-disease management programs are, in fact, reducing costs and improving health.

Fortunately, your company doesn’t have to be a big corporation or spend a lot of money to promote wellness.

Employees of companies insured through CBIA Health Connections, for example, have dozens of wellness programs they can take advantage of. (See Page 5 for a partial list.)

“Encouraging healthy lifestyles in the workplace can be pretty inexpensive,” says Dr. Alan Muney, chief medical officer for UnitedHealthcare of the Northeast, parent company of Oxford Health Plans. “The employer doesn’t have to build [wellness] programs” if they have a group health insurance plan, he says. “Often, the health plan’s Web site has tips and teaching tools to help employees see how they can improve their health.

“The key is promoting them and motivating employees,” says Muney. “You want to raise awareness and promote wellness.”

Why stress wellness?

According to Darling, “In the ’80s and ’90s, employers mostly just changed their health plans [in response to rising costs]. They didn’t want to spend money on other programs.” But, she adds, “They have completely changed their view. They want healthy employees — and dependents, because if a dependent is sick, the employee isn’t as productive.

“Companies now believe they have to develop programs that help employees know what a healthy lifestyle entails and which screening tests they need to prevent serious illnesses,” she says.

From a cost standpoint alone, helping employees stay healthy makes sense.
Says Dr. Muney, “If you look at the average [company’s] employee population, about half of the people are healthy. About 35% are at risk — their health status or behaviors, such as smoking or being more than 25% overweight, put them at risk for health problems. The rest are already ill with things like heart disease or diabetes; they’re the ones driving up health care costs.

In that same “average” company, he says, “About 60% of next year’s high-cost population will come from this year’s low-cost population — some people who are healthy will move into the at-risk category, and some of the at-risk population will move into the acute, chronic illness category.

“The challenge for employers, given the expense of health care and the expense of turnover and training new employees, is to encourage employees to adopt healthy behaviors, because that will lower the employer’s health care costs over time, compared with what their costs would be if they did nothing,” Muney says.

Are they cost effective?

In that quest, companies are finding eager allies in their health insurers.

The desire to control costs is providing “a big push” for wellness programs now, agrees Teresa Athas, work site wellness coordinator for ConnectiCare. Her company has been offering these programs since the 1990s, some of them “tied to health-management programs for things like diabetes and asthma,” she says.

Are such programs cost effective?

Wellness programs “have been around long enough now that we’re starting to see improved health, improved productivity and better [cost] outcomes,” says Joe Mondy, a spokesman for CIGNA Health Care.

He cites one success story as an example: a 3,000-employee print shop that wanted to moderate its health care costs without reducing employees’ benefits.

“When we surveyed their employees to see how many of them thought they were obese, only 40% did. But 80% were actually clinically obese,” says Mondy.

“We began offering awareness programs, Weight Watchers, Walk 10,000 Steps a Day, and support groups. The company’s year-over-year increase in medical costs dropped from 17% (as of Jan. 1, 2005) to just 7%. “Their cost increase the prior year was $2 million. [Our wellness programs] cut $1.5 million out of that increase,” Mondy says.

According to a ConnectiCare report, a review of 17 different studies found employers saved $3.14 in health care costs and $5.82 in absenteeism costs for every dollar they spent on health promotion programs.

“Certain individual programs are definitely cost effective,” says the National Business Group’s Darling. “If you can get someone to stop smoking, that’s very cost effective. If you get people with high cholesterol to take statins, that’s very cost effective. If a company can do only two things, the most cost effective are flu shots and smoking cessation programs.”

More than saving money

But employers have more reasons than saving money to promote wellness.

“There’s a growing sense that healthy employees are more productive. So it’s not just a cost issue; it’s a business issue. It’s a competitive advantage to have productive employees,” says Health Net’s Sell.

“There’s a big improvement in productivity, in how often people are out sick,” agrees Darling. “If people are in good health, they’re more productive. If you have diabetes, asthma, migraines — if you don’t feel good — you’re going to be miserable and not very productive.”

Wellness programs also boost employee morale and loyalty.

ConnectiCare’s Athas says that when she did on-site wellness training at companies, the feedback she received from employees confirmed this. “Employees feel that the employer cares about them. The employee feels valued and is therefore more productive and loyal.”

Health insurers themselves are so convinced of the benefits of workplace wellness programs that they offer them to their own employees. Aetna and CIGNA, for example, were both honored this year as “Best Employers for Healthy Life-styles” by the National Business Group on Health (see Page 3).

“As a provider of health and wellness benefits, we know the importance of helping people live healthier lives,” says John Murabito, executive vice president of human resources and services for CIGNA Corp. “We offer ... a variety of wellness programs and a wealth of online and personal support focused on helping employees achieve their personal health goals.”

Their employee wellness program, he adds, strengthens employee satisfaction and reinforces a health-oriented mind set throughout the company.

 

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