Health Insurance Daily

Being Healthy May Be its Own Reward, But a Little Cash Can Also Help Keep Workers Fit

Facing escalating medical costs, firms use incentives to target employees who normally do not participate in wellness programs: the ones who need them most.

Two years ago Sprint found itself at a loss about what to do to stem rising health care costs. After aggressively trying to control the expenses through cost-sharing and changes in its benefits, the company, which has 59,000 employees, had thought it was ahead of the curve.

Sprint’s benefits team discovered that the company was still facing a $45 million to $50 million annual increase in health care costs if it didn’t do more.

"If we did nothing, it would have meant that our salespeople were going to have to come up with $500 million more in revenue," benefits manager Collier Case says.

The problem with merely offering wellness programs is that the employees who typically participate are those who are already healthy, says Bruce Kelley, a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Employees who are obese or who smoke often do not want to get a health risk assessment only to be told that they have to change their lifestyles.

But these are the very employees that companies most want to reach. They are key to reducing the company’s health care costs. And that’s where the incentives come in, Kelley says.

By offering incentives, employers hope that more of the smokers, the overweight and the chronically ill employees will participate in their wellness programs. "These programs have completely changed in nature," Kelley says. "They now are more focused on targeting the higher-risk population and bringing effective solutions to those groups."

For more on this article, click on Incentives.

posted by Mike @ 8:10 AM