Listen Up

That’s according to Helen Darling, President of The National Business Group on Health, who is here to tell me about the change in employee healthcare that has taken place over the last five years. “Employers have seen themselves paying for coverage and then letting individuals make choices of their own,” she says. “But what’s interesting is that people used to take their health benefits for granted. About five years ago employees started to really understand the importance of healthcare. We were in a recession for about 18 months, starting with the tech sector, subsequently the whole economy, then 9/11 happened and the economy’s recovery was slow. During that time we had airlines going into bankruptcy, and so on: a lot was happening in our economy that was making people realize that having health coverage is extremely important.” These are some of the reasons that employees have seen that health benefits have such high value with employers and employees.

It was around this time five years ago that the increase in obesity led to escalating medical costs. But the medical problems related to obesity amounted to more than the cost of paying for health care; as Darling puts it, “it wasn’t enough to just pay for medical care. They couldn’t wait for people to figure out themselves that they were eating themselves to early deaths.” The rapidly rising claims were driven by behavioral choices in individual behavior that was making individuals obese and sick. The only way to stop that was to help people to change their behavior. Employers interested in the welfare of employees began developing programs identifying the issues of obesity and being overweight, and to help people improve their health. These are some of theof the origins of today’s corporate wellness programs.

The false hope of autonomy

It’s a given that all employees want their employers to pay for 100 percent of care, with no constraints of any kind. “Anything short of that they won’t be happy with,” confirms Darling. “They want total freedom. And our system is very entrepreneurial, so any time there’s new technology there will be physicians who make that technology available to people. About five years ago employers started putting in plans aimed at helping consumers understand that they’re not just spending somebody else’s money, they’re actually spending their own money.” The role of CDHC came out of the movement to get people to understand that they were actually spending (and wasting) their own money, and subsequently encourage them to change their behavior.

CDHC plans cost less, as there is more cost sharing built in. Initially this seems to employees like they aren’t being “given” as much money from their employer as before, but actually, “it can drive down premium costs which people like it too,” says Darling. “Consumer directed health plans cost less, and as an employer or employee you pay a lower premium for those plans, but you do spend more out of pocket. Most of the employers who offer them have cost calculators on their web sites, so you can calculate what your options: what if you took a plan from a preferred provider organization with cost-sharing, versus the consumer directed health plan.”

Theory in action

It is for all these reasons that wellness and lifestyle improvement programs are becoming a top priority with many large employers. Earlier this year The National Business Group on Health recognized 41 US employers for their continuing efforts to promote healthy work environments and encourage workers to live healthier lifestyles – 50 percent more this year than when the program was launched.

The underlying goal of the annual Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles awards is to serve as a catalyst to encourage all employers to take action. The winning companies from this year offered wellness and lifestyle improvement programs including initiatives like; onsite fitness and health clinics; weight-management, smoking cessation and tobacco cessation programs; health coaches; web-based health and fitness tools; financial incentives for participating in fitness programs and health risk assessments. “Employers are recognizing that there is a direct link between healthy and engaged workers, high productivity, and controlling rising health costs. There is a clear indication that a growing number of employers are serious about helping workers and their families improve their health,” says Darling when I ask her about it. “This is a strong movement and I think it will continue to be so for at least five more years.”

Wellness as a tool to retain talent

With the labor market tightening, enterprise must leverage every advantage to attract and retain those key candidates. Employers have obviously taken note of this too, as Darling explains to me. “We surveyed employees who work for large employers about their employer-provided health care benefits and a despite rising costs, a vast majority of US workers say they are very satisfied with them.” Furthermore, most workers consider the health plan to be their most important benefit and they have little interest in purchasing coverage on their own.

More interesting facts unearthed by the survey were that two in three respondents (67 percent) consider their health plan to be excellent or very good. An even greater number (75 percent) value the health plan as the most important benefit versus 14 percent who consider a retirement savings plan to be most important. Workers also place high value on having a health plan that is easy to manage, allows freedom to choose doctors, and limits their cost when they visit a doctor or get a prescription – at least six in 10 employees consider these to be very important. Less than four in 10 consider having a plan that covers serious illness rather than routine care or offering incentives for healthy lifestyles to be very important.

More interesting facts unearthed by the survey were that two in three respondents (67 percent) consider their health plan to be excellent or very good. An even greater number ((75 percent) value the health plan as the most important benefit versus 14 percent who consider a retirement savings plan to be most important. Workers also place high value on having a health plan that is easy to manage, allows freedom to choose doctors, and limits their cost when they visit a doctor or get a prescription – at least six in 10 employees consider these to be very important. Less than four in 10 consider having a plan that covers serious illness rather than routine care or offering incentives for healthy lifestyles to be very important.

These are telling results, and show the culture – in many large institutions at least – is changing for the better. And not before time: “Health benefits are valued so greatly by employees today,” Darling contemplates. “In fact, in this country right now, it would be hard to recruit and retain talent without good health benefits.” If you haven’t already started implementing wellness programs in your enterprise, it might already be too late.