Wellness Programs
BarbieW
117 Posts
Has anyone put a wellness program in at their company? What did you do and is it working? We are considering putting together a program, but senior managers want to know how it will benefit the company.
Comments
Benefit programs, like policies, should always start with your answer to the question, "What are we trying to accomplish by having a wellness program?"
Is this about applicant attraction? Retention? Attendance (through reduced health related call-ins, for example)? Once you have laid out why you want to introduce a wellness program, you should be able to then show how the wellness program will help you meet your goal. So let's get started: what are you trying to accomplish by having a wellness program?
Thanks for responding. We are looking to set up a wellness program to improve attendance and overall employee health, and to reduce long-term health insurance costs. The company is also thinking of switching to an HSA/high deductible plan for 2009, and I've heard that wellness programs should go hand in hand with consumer directed healthcare. I have to admit I'm not much of an expert on this!
We went to a HSA. Everyone hates it. The better off employees would like to use it for the flexibility it offers as an investment vehicle but they're not going to sacrifice their superior insurance to get it. The less better off employees resent having to pay $100+ to see the doctor for a sinus infection and then pay $100+ for the prescription, all of which is applied to their hefty deductible that they may never meet this year unless they have a serious health situation pop up. The Company was able to reduce its costs significantly by switching to HSA.
To make your case, I think you need to show a few different things and you need to show them quantifiably. For example, you need to show them that wellness+HSA is lower cost to the Company than PPO and no wellness and, moreover, that attendance will go up because health issues will be reduced. This is really about management decision making. If their reason for going to HSA is to save money, then they're going to be relutant to add something back into the pot that they saved by going to HSA in the first place. You need to find credible studies that will show that a wellness program is an investment and not an expense. That means that they have to win more back by havnig a wellness program than they are going to spend on it.
Attendance improvement, in and of iself, is not necessarily any great thing unless you are having attendance problems in a production area that's affecting the bottom lnie. So, for example, you may want to show that attendance is a problem in a production area (e.g., sales or assembly) and that by increasing production, the Company could make more money. Then you show how a wellness program will increase attendance. Then you show how the increased revenue (preferably profit) is greater than the cost of the wellness program.
I do think that wellness programs should go hand in hand with consumer directed healthcare. One of the things about HSA/high deductible plans is that the employee is paying less money for the monthly premium and paying the other amount only, if and when, he/she goes to the doctor and/or gets a Rx. If you have healthier employees (and a good wellness program can help with some of this) then they are ultimately spending less money.
We have recently switched to a HSA/high deductible plan. I am about 50/50 split between employees that like the program and those that hate the program. I will tell you that it is a lot of work on your part to explain the differences b/t this type of program and a traditional plan and also explain where the savings come into play. Most hear high deductible and shut down on you b/c they don't want to hear anymore about it. I did group meetings and then individual meetings to show the employees how they can save money. It also helped that my company decided to put some of the money they would be saving back into the employees by giving each employee on the plan a certain dollar amount into their HSA each month.
One thing I have found is that it is hard for a smaller company like mine to put together a wellness program that works and has ROI for the company. I am fortunate that the building owners we lease space from decided to put a gym in for all of the tenants to use. I have had a bunch of employees start using this gym. They like that they can go before work, at lunch or after work, at their convenience. My employees don't have to pay for the use of this gym. The company is basically paying for this in our lease payments to the building owners.
We have also added the high deductible plan and have about 50% participation. The healthy employees love the plan because they are not spending money and not receiving any benefit for it. We do have a younger popluation though.
As far as the wellness program goes, we have a Wellness fair once a year and have Aurora come in and do alot of free assesments as well as several others such as cholesterol for a small fee. This is very well received since it is on site and many employees find out information about themselves that they would never have gone to the Dr for.
We are a Chiropractic College and a Wellness program fits well with our population. Ours is simple, during the last hour of work (Monday - Thursday) employees (of course with their supervisor's approval) can pick two days and work out. We have a small collection of equipment, gym, tv/video andd employees work out. We also have some walk the campus.
To be eligible, they have to have completed their 90 days, complete the wellness package which includes a release and health statement with superviosr's approval. They come by HR and sign out then go workout. They are paid for this hour. After they have completed 24 hours of wellness they earn a day off with pay.
We just finished our second round of Weight Watchers at work. The employees paid themself but the meeting counted towards their wellness.
We want to expand the program but haven't started yet. We used to have periodic Brown Bag Lunches which we hope to bring back.
Hope this helps.
Sue
We put a wellness program in place several years ago. It consist of 4 major parts: physical activity, prevention, education and team challenges. Our employees can earn points by participating in any or all of these catagories and at the end of the year cash the points in for dollars. We have about 55% participation every year.
We started the program to reduce healthcare premiums and were told that we could expect a 3-1 return on our investment. But I can tell you that ROI is a difficult thing to measure. Why? Because of turnover in employees and outside forces like the rising cost of healthcare. We have experienced major increases due to cancer and other conditions that we can't control short term or because of heredity. In the past 5 years we have been forced to change medical plan platforms from a very rich HMO to a PPO then a PPO with an HRA and finally to the High Deductible Medical Plan with a HSA. We are currently in our second year of the HSA and while it was not originally well received most of our people now like it. This year we tied participation in the wellness program to even more premium reductions.
So what results do we attribute to the wellness program; behavior changes in diet, exercise, attitude, energy and presenteeism. These things all come slowly but we believe they will translate into lower healthcare costs, less absenteeism, fewer accidents and injuries and better worker's compensation management, higher employee morale and enhanse the caring culture we want to promote throughout our company.
Having said that I think there is one more result that ranks higher than all these and that is "awareness". Before we started the wellness program we had people who hadn't been to the doctor in years and were not aware of conditions that could or would develop into serious illnesses. What you are aware of you can control but what you are not aware of controls you. How do you measure this?