Corporate Wellness Becomes CEO Issue - How to Reduce Workplace Health Care Costs.

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to encourage Fortune 1000 businesses to consider making workforce health a CEO issue and adopt strategies to promote avoidance and wellness.

After several years of double-digit rate increases for health insurance, businesses are realizing that among the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have workers take more responsibility for both costs and health options.

A majority of businesses surveyed feel that the best way for reducing costs is financial incentives to encourage workers to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Almost 100 percent of companys surveyed say that health care costs will be a crucial or significant concern over the next five years, according to a recent survey by United Benefit Advisors.

More businesss are adopting higher deductible health plans with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and broader disease management programs to control ever-increasing health care costs.

Failure to deal with these issues can be disastrous for an business. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alegent Health lately stated, “I think that we’ve built a health care machinery we cannot afford. I think we are choking the economic engine of America.”

In his October 2005 newsletter, Dr. Andrew Weil stated, “I think rising health- care costs are becoming the major economic issue in our nation”. Obesity costs California corporations billions of dollars each year.

Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect healthcare costs, employee’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced among the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

According to California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it’s an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people  do not even realize that they are obese, which is defined as only 20% above normal weight.

There’s a great need for additional education on weight and resulting illnesses, and the workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can lead to a significant return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce causes a very short period of time.

Although many businesss have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing.

In many cases, the healthier workers participated for incentives, like health club memberships, but those who needed it most didn’t take benefit of the program in a meaningful way.

Businesses are looking at ways to encourage more employees to buy into the wellness movement.

A recent webinar hosted by Human Resource (HR) Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing and Advertising Group titled, “Healthier Employees; Healthier Bottom Line -  Engaging Staff Members is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home.

This session provided actionable advice on how corporations are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on worker engagement. It also highlighted how you can create an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your organization.

Corporations can simply no longer ignore the issue of their employee’s unhealthful lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to reduce medical costs, absenteeism and lost productivity.

Workers also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and expert lives. the alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the company.