Corporate Wellness Becomes CEO Issue - How to Reduce Workplace Health Care Costs.

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to encourage Fortune 1000 businesses to consider making workforce health a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) issue and adopt strategies to promote prevention and wellness.

After a few years of double-digit rate increases for medical insurance, companies are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have workers take more responsibility for both costs and health choices.

A majority of companies surveyed feel that the best way for lowering costs is financial incentives to encourage staff members to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Almost 100 percent of companys surveyed say that health costs will be a critical or significant concern over the next five years, as reported by a recent survey by United Benefit Advisors.

More corporations are adopting higher deductible health plans with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and broader disease management (DM) programs for control ever-increasing healthcare costs.

Failure to deal with these issues could be disastrous for an employer. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) 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 costs are becoming the major economic issue in our nation”. Obesity costs California businesses billions of dollars each year.

Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect health costs, employee’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced among the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

As reported by California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it’s an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people  don’t even realize that they’re obese, which is defined as only 20 percent above normal weight.

There’s a excellent need for more education on weight and resulting diseases, and the workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can lead to a significant return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce causes a very short period of time.

Although many companys have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing.

In many cases, the healthier staff members participated for incentives, such as fitness center memberships, but those who needed it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way.

Corporations are looking at ways to encourage more workers to buy into the wellness movement.

A recent webinar hosted by Human Resource (HR) Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing and Advertising Group titled, “Healthier Employees; Healthier Bottom Line -  Engaging Employees is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home.

This session provided actionable advice on how businesses are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on worker engagement. It also highlighted how you can develop an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your organization.

Employers can simply no longer ignore the issue of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must act to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to reduce medical costs, absenteeism and lost productivity.

Employees also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and specialist lives. the alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the corporation.