Employee Health Promotion Becomes CEO Issue – Exactly how to Reduce Worksite Health 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 avoidance and wellness.

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

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

Almost 100 percent of corporations surveyed say that health care costs are going to be a crucial or significant concern over the next five years, according to a recent survey by United Benefit Advisors.

More corporations are adopting higher deductible health care programs with HRA’s or HSA’S, health promotion programs, and expanded disease management (DM) programs to control ever-increasing health care costs.

Failure to deal with these issues could be disastrous for an company. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alegent Health recently stated, “I think that we’ve built a health care machinery we can’t afford. I think we’re 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 corporations billions of dollars each year.

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

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

There is a great need for more education on weight and resulting illnesses, and the workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can result in a meaningful return on investment and, when structured properly, can produce causes a very short period of time.

Despite the fact that many employers have attempted some form of health promotion program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing.

In many cases, the healthier workforce participated for incentives, like fitness club memberships, but those who needed it most did not take benefit of the wellness program in a meaningful way.

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

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

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

Corporations can simply no longer ignore the issue of their staff member’s unhealthy life choices and must take action to engage them in a meaningful health promotion 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 professional lives.  The alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the corporation.