When it comes to health promotion programs, it could be tough to get past all the hype. Here’s how to avoid the three most common traps employers fall into.
Trap #1. The “one-size-fits-all” approach
For good reason, your business does not simply copy other firms’ 401(k) plans or compensation designs. Yet, all too often, firms adopt ill-fitting wellness programs based on things that have worked elsewhere.
Your CFO might have seen data on the cost savings other businesss have achieved via certain wellness incentives. Or an old coworker of your CEO swears by the health promotion program at his or her own firm.
In response, the top brass pushes for a copycat wellness program – for example, offering tobacco use cessation incentives.
That could be a good idea, if tobacco-related illnesses are a key driver of your company’s medical costs. But how can you be sure? is it good enough to have your staff undergo a health risk assessment?
Normally, the answer is no.
Health risk assessments are a great beginning 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 attempt to design a wellness program around them.
This creates rough outlines of what your health promotion program objectives 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 –
your organization’s medical-claims breakdown for the last three years
prescription-drug claims
employee absence information
employee assistance program use
disability claims, and
employee demographics (workers’ ethnic, gender, age and dependent coverage status points to greater – and lesser – 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. Corporations are left wondering what went wrong. Their mistake – They failed to revisit the wellness program on an ongoing basis – 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 might be your biggest cost driver. But two years from now, it might be obesity and diabetes.
Unless you continuously track the wellness program and adjust your objectives as necessary, you may not be prepared to meet those new challenges.
Trap #3. Unrealistic expectations
Normally, it takes at least a year and a half for businesss to break even on the cost of a health promotion program. As a rule of thumb, the average program cost per staff member per month to the business is about $3 to $5.
When, 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.
Exactly how can you manage the cost in the short-term? In many cases, corporations pass the cost of the health promotion program on to the workforce. for example, let’s say you want to roll out a health promotion program effective January 1 (or no matter what your first day is of the new plan year).
You can roll that $3 to $5 per staff member per month cost directly into the employee’s monthly share of their healthcare premium. That makes the wellness program a budget-neutral expense for your corporation.
But remember – You get what you pay for – both in time and money invested. The less guesswork that’s involved in the planning and execution, the better the chance for success.