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Can Wellness Programs Lower Health Premiums?

In the midst of Health Care Reform, employers are finding that rising health care premiums are significantly impacting their businesses and their profitability. Not only are employers feeling the effects of rising costs, but employees are as well. While Health Care Reform is often blamed for these rising costs, there might be something even bigger in play that most employers have not even addressed or considered: the aggregate decline in health of their employees.

Our business environment drastically changed from being an economic leader in manufacturing and production to an economy that operates mostly on information. Due to technological advances, most employees can work directly from their computer rather than moving around to complete tasks.

It is no surprise that workers are becoming less healthy and more overweight when a job can be completed from a computer over the internet. This may not be the only factor in play, but is certainly a large contributor to the increasingly unhealthy employee population and the rise in health premiums. According to the Thomson Reuters Workforce Wellness Index – which measures body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose and tobacco - the Wellness index declined 2 percent from 86.4 to 84.4 from 2005 to 2009. In this instance, a score of 100 would mean that no health risks were in play.

Employers are now forced to get creative in keeping up with the rising costs when sponsoring a group health plan. Some are changing plan structure altogether, including deductibles and specific coverage available just to keep up with the rising costs. Others may be implementing company-wide wellness programs to create a healthier pool of employees, with the chance that they may be able to lower health premiums if experience-rated.

Wellness programs seem to be the likely solution to a growing problem.

Incentive-based wellness programs are being implemented in businesses to create a healthy atmosphere, with the goal of reducing the costs of health care premiums and increasing employee productivity and overall wellbeing. Wellness programs can range from offering basic fitness and nutrition challenges to a full-blown wellness program with third party health assessments and designated health coaches.

Listed below are a few examples of wellness activities:

Five Fruits and Vegetables Challenge

Fitness Challenges

Smoking Cessation Classes

Build a Community Garden

3rd Party Health Risk Assessments

Offer Massage in the Workplace

Onsite Exercise Classes

Exercise Room

Onsite Biometric Screening

Offer “brown bag” seminars: diet & nutrition, fitness, stress management

Healthy Summer BBQ

Charity Runs/Walks – create a team to participate

There are many creative and fun ways to bring wellness into the workplace. Given the continual rise in health care costs due to unhealthy eating habits, our work environment and the resulting lack of exercise, company wellness initiatives seem to be the best possible solution to address rising costs, a solution employers cannot leave on the table.

For more information on human resource consulting or employer programs, contact Xenium HR at 503-612-1555 or visit www.xeniumhr.com. The staff at Xenium HR contributed to this article. It is intended as information only and is not a substitute for legal advice. Xenium HR is a professional employer organization specializing in strategic HR partnership with small and mid-sized businesses in Portland, Oregon.