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2nd Quarter 2008 Executive
Summaries
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Financially speaking, an effective, comprehensive, properly executed health and productivity (H&P) program can drive significant business results. Unfortunately, many companies are not getting the same return on their investments in H&P programs as their peers. This article defines program effectiveness and describes the specific activities of employers that have implemented successful H&P strategies leading to improved health, increased productivity and lower benefit costs—and, in turn, higher levels of performance, returns to shareholders and market premium.
Health Incentives: The Science and Art Of Motivating Healthy Behaviors
by Barry Hall, Buck Consultants
Employers seeking to motivate and encourage healthy behaviors among their employees are increasingly turning to incentive rewards. In fact, a recent Buck Consultants survey of 555 employers, titled Working Well: A Global Survey of Health Promotion and Workplace Wellness Strategies, predicts the use of such rewards to more than double over the next two to three years. This article provides an overview of the key considerations for employers seeking to maximize the value of incentive rewards. Discussion includes incentive strategies, types of rewards, reward amounts and regulatory considerations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
by Ann D. Clark, ACI Specialty Benefits
Businesses should focus on a proactive solution to rising health care costs, using integrated wellness programs that emphasize condition management and total health and well-being. If corporations wish to remain competitive, profitable and successful in attracting and retaining topnotch talent from all generations, they are going to have to start investing in and thinking creatively about wellness offerings. Not only do wellness programs have a proven track record of success in reducing health care costs, they also resonate loud and clear with modern-day employees who are determined to work for a company that understands their needs and is willing to make progress with the employee's best interests in mind.
Consumerism and Wellness: Rising Tide, Falling Cost
by Alexander (Sander) Domaszewicz, Mercer
Annual employer-sponsored health plan cost increases have been slowing incrementally due to slowing health care utilization—a phenomenon very likely tied to the proliferation of health management activities, wellness programs and other consumerism strategies. This article describes the sharp rise in recent years of consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and explains what developments must happen for genuine consumer directed health care to realize its full potential. These developments include gathering transparent health care information, increasing consumer demand for that information and creating truly intuitive data solutions that allow consumers to easily access information in order to make better health care decisions.
by Kathryn Fitch and Bruce Pyenson, Milliman
The health cost crisis has spawned a thriving cost-control industry that offers an ever-growing number of “solutions.”The authors of this article encourage employers to go back to the basics in evaluating these offerings, including their wellness policies and programs. This article describes the many ways different employers do wellness, the evidence base for wellness, how employers should target wellness candidates, and the elements of success and failure for wellness initiatives.
Value-Driven Health Care—Pipe Dream, Placebo or Prescription For Excellence?
by Ed Pudlowski, Ernst & Young
The Value-Driven Health Care initiative and the Executive Order (EO) that underpins it invert the cost/quality equation and proceed from the premise that improving quality first—in terms of both care and system management—will reduce costs and elevate value. Equally essential to the success of the initiative is transparency: access to information that will empower consumers to save on quality care. This article describes the four cornerstones of the EO and explains how they will translate into corporate action and value.
Full text copies of these articles are available through the INFOSOURCE™ Document Delivery Service. Article reprints are also available in quantities of 100 or more. For information, call the Publications Department at (888) 33-IFEBP. You can order your subscription (reprints and back issues) online. Four issues for $125 (or $95 for CEBS registrants).