Health and Wellness Leads : Business Wellness Becomes CEO Issue – How to Reduce Workplace Health Expenditures

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to advocate Fortune 1000 businesses to consider making workforce health a CEO concern and adopt strategies to encourage prevention and wellness. After several years of double-digit rate increases for medical insurance, businesses are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have staff members take more responsibility for both expenditures and health choices. A majority of businesses surveyed feel that the best way for reducing expenditures is financial incentives/rewards to advocate staff members to adopt healthier lifestyles.

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

Failure to deal with these issues might 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 major economic problem in our nation”. Obesity expenditures California employers 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 work rate. 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 significant return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although a myriad of organizations have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing. In many cases, the healthier employees participated for rewards and incentives, such as health club memberships, but those who required it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way. Organizations are looking at ways to promote more employees to buy into the wellness movement.

A current 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 businesses 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 impact for your organization.

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 decrease health costs, absenteeism and lost productiveness. staff members 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 corporation.