In the past, the focus of wellness programs
has been on managing “sick” employees. We all know being sick costs
money. So if you could make the sickness go away then less
money would be spent on health care right?
Here’s the big idea,
“manage the disease” of those employees who are already sick and then hope that
they will become healthy again. This type of thinking suggests once the sick
became healthy, the company would realize their return on investment (ROI). This
seems like a logical solution. However, history has demonstrated
this may be logical, but is a bad idea. Here’s what happens. The
people who are already sick stayed sick, the healthy people become sick, and
the company would not realize their ROI for three or more years down the road,
if ever.
To save money on health
care costs the focus needs to be on keeping every employee healthy. That way
the sick get better and the healthy stay healthy.
The long and the short of it is …
it costs less money to focus on wellness and everyone knows it.
Refer to
chart below for distribution of savings demonstrated by wellness. It costs less
money to provide wellness to all employees combined then provide disease and
medical management to a few.
Demonstrated Savings of a Wellness Program
|
Management
|
ROI / person
|
Participation
|
|
Wellness
|
$3
- $24
|
100%
|
|
Disease
|
$7
- $10
|
10
– 30%
|
|
Disability
|
$7
-$10
|
10
– 15%
|
|
Medical
|
$2
- $3
|
5
-7%
|
In 2011, Insurance Associated conducted a study
that found a small percentage of employees (20%) had developed the indicators
of chronic disease and identified this group as “high risk”. The healthy or
“low risk” were the remaining group (80%). When the focus is on the 20%, the
80% will begin to shift from low risk to the high risk population.
Why is
that? “Chronic” means to happen over
time. Many medical experts agree heart disease, cancer and the like are a 10-
year process. This means it’s 10 years from the beginning of the disease until
the first symptom. In the case of heartdisease, it may begin with the first french fry (cholesterol build up) not the
chest pain (heart attack). As you can imagine, it’s infinitely more costly and
complicated to make someone unhealthy who is in the throes of chronic disease
than it is someone who is in the early stages or pre-chronic disease state.
The new
trend in wellness programming is to focus on the entire population. Those
healthy, high risk, and chronic disease groups. In this way wellness
programming reduces and sometimes freezes health care spending on medications,
doctor visits, emergency room, and hospital admissions.
How?
By early detection and identifying disease risk factors. Such as pre-high blood pressure and
pre-diabetes (high blood sugar). When
blood pressure and blood sugar are on the rise, both can be reduced with
healthy lifestyle measures such as making healthy food choices and increased
physical activity.
Your partner in health,
Wellness Consultant
Certified Health Coach
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