Workplace health programs can impact health care costs
An investment in employee health may lower health care costs and insurance claims. In fact, employees with more risk factors, including being overweight, smoking and having diabetes, cost more to insure and pay more for health care than people with fewer risk factors.
A workplace health program has the potential to both keep healthy employees in the “low-risk” category by promoting health maintenance, while also targeting those unhealthy employees in the higher-risk categories, therefore lowering overall health insurance costs. A systematic review of 56 published studies of worksite health programs showed that well-implemented workplace health programs can lead to 25% savings each on absenteeism, health care costs, and workers’ compensation and disability management claims costs.
Individual employees can also save money by improving their health. For example, a smoker who spends $5 per pack of cigarettes per day can save $1825 a year by giving up smoking and many companies provide lower insurance premiums for non-smokers creating additional savings.
Other insurance premiums such as life insurance are also lower when an individual has lower health risks. And by practicing a healthy lifestyle and getting recommended clinical preventive services, an individual employee may reduce the number of trips needed to go see the doctor because of an illness and the co-payments which come with those office visits, such as getting an influenza vaccine to avoid getting influenza.
via CDC – Workplace Health – Business Case – Benefits of Health Program – Control Costs.
Over the years, using a health assessment as part of a wellness program has become a recognized best practice in workplace health management because it works and provides value. Market leading companies across the U.S. and around the world use health assessments because they provide a level of information and knowledge about employee health that cannot be found anywhere else. These same organizations have realized good results by using the knowledge gleaned from health assessment data to reduce health risks, reduce health care spending and increase productivity.
