Employee Health Screening

When it comes to wellness programs, it could be tough to get past all the hype. Here’s how to avoid the three most common traps companys fall into.

Trap #1.  The “one-size-fits-all” approach

For good reason, your organization does not 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 health promotion program at his or her own firm.

In response, the top brass pushes for a copycat wellness program â.” for example, offering use of tobacco cessation incentives.

That may  be a good idea, if smoking-related diseases are a key driver of your company’s health costs. But how can you be sure? is it good enough to have your workers undergo a health risk assessment?

Typically, the answer is no.

Health risk assessments are a excellent starting 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 try to design a wellness program around them.

This creates rough outlines of what your wellness program goals must be and where to target staff member initiatives. 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  worker absence information

o  employee assistance program (EAP) use

o  disability claims, and

o  worker 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 wellness programs often get off to a good start and then fizzle out. Companys are left wondering what went wrong. Their mistake –  They failed to revisit the wellness program on an ongoing basis â.” at least every other year.

Why it’s vital –  Your cost-drivers can easily shift as workforce come and go from the company.

Example –  This year, emphysema and other tobacco use diseases may  be your largest cost driver. But two years from now, it may be obesity and diabetes.

Unless you continuously track the health promotion program and adjust your goals as necessary, you could not be prepared to meet those new challenges.

Trap #3. Unrealistic expectations

Ordinarily, it takes at least a year and a half for corporations to break even on the cost of a wellness program.  As a rule of thumb, the typical program cost per staff member per month to the corporation is about $3 to $5.

If, after three years, you still aren’t seeing results, something went wrong. Currently, the benchmark Return On Investment after the third year of a wellness program is $4 to $5 saved for every dollar spent.

Just how can you manage the cost in the short-term? In many cases, companys pass the cost of the wellness program on to the workers. for example, let’s say you want to roll out a wellness program effective January 1 (or whatever your first day is of the new plan year).

You can roll that $3 to $5 per worker 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.