When it comes to health promotion programs, it can be tough to get past all the hype. Here is how to avoid the three most common traps employers fall into.
Trap #1. The “one-size-fits-all” approach
For good reason, your company doesn’t simply copy other firms’ 401(k) plans or compensation designs. Yet, all too often, firms adopt ill-fitting health promotion programs based on things that have worked elsewhere.
Your CFO might have seen data on the cost savings other companys have achieved via certain wellness incentives. Or an old coworker of your Chief Executive Officer (CEO) swears by the wellness program at his or her own firm.
In response, the top brass pushes for a copycat wellness program â.” for example, offering tobacco use cessation incentives.
That might be a good idea, since tobacco-related illnesses are a key driver of your company’s healthcare costs. But how can you be sure? is it good enough to have your personnel undergo a health risk appraisal?
Normally, the answer is no.
Health risk appraisals are a excellent beginning place, but it’s often a mistake to stop there. The assessments help you get a feel for what your employees’ baseline physical problems are before you attempt to design a health promotion program around them.
This creates rough outlines of what your wellness program goals should be and where to target staff member programs. If you want the maximum bang for your wellness buck, you’ll have to dig a little deeper for information. Key places to look -
o your organization’s medical-claims breakdown for the last three years
o prescription-drug claims
o staff member absence information
o employee assistance program use
o disability claims, and
o staff member demographics (workers’ ethnic, gender, age and dependent coverage status points to greater â.” and lesser â.” health risks associated with each category).
Trap #2. Leaving the wellness program on autopilot
A lot of health promotion programs often get off to a good start and then fizzle out. Employers are left wondering what went wrong. Their mistake – They failed to revisit the health promotion program on an ongoing basis â.” at least every other year.
Why it’s crucial – Your cost-drivers can easily shift as staff come and go from the corporation.
Example – This year, emphysema and other smoking diseases could be your biggest cost driver. But two years from now, it could be obesity and diabetes.
Unless you continuously track the wellness program and adjust your goals as necessary, you might not be prepared to meet those new challenges.
Trap #3. Unrealistic expectations
Ordinarily, it takes at least a year and a half for employers to break even on the cost of a health promotion program. As a rule of thumb, the average program cost per staff member per month to the employer is about $3 to $5.
If, after three years, you still aren’t seeing results, something went wrong. Currently, the benchmark Return On Investment (ROI) after the third year of a health promotion program is $4 to $5 saved for every dollar spent.
Precisely how can you manage the cost in the short-term? In many cases, businesss pass the cost of the wellness program on to the employees. for instance, let’s say you want to roll out a wellness program effective January 1 (or no matter what your first day is of the new plan year).
You can roll that $3 to $5 per employee per month cost directly into the employee’s monthly share of their healthcare premium. That makes the health promotion program a budget-neutral expense for your organization.
But remember – You get what you pay for â.” both in time and money invested. The less guesswork that’s involved in the planning and execution, the better the chance for success.
Wellness Proposals