Health Care & Insurance  November 28, 2014

Prognosis mixed for wellness plans

Fewer employers offer programs for worker health

Employees at one business that attempted to run a wellness program broke a scale used as part of an effort to curb their weight gain.

That wasn’t because they were obese. Instead, they were trying to sabotage their company’s wellness program, said Bill Lindsay, president of Lockton Benefit Group in Denver. The program had tied weight loss to its health-insurance plans.

The incident underscores the challenges that businesses face incorporating wellness programs into their health plans. Such programs involve preventing or reducing issues or conditions such as hypertension, weight control, diet, blood pressure, tobacco use and others. The programs include testing of employees’ health conditions and determining whether those employees have taken steps to improve.

If employees fail to reach a set of goals, they may pay higher contributions to their health-insurance plans. They may get the benefit of paying lower contributions if they meet certain health goals.

“You have to show improvement year over year or demonstrate why you can’t,” said Lindsay, who also is interim chairman of the Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care.

Surveys indicate that these kinds of wellness programs have not caught on at most Colorado organizations. About 42 percent of Colorado employers will offer a wellness program in 2015, down from 47 percent this year, according to a survey by Lockton of 600 employers statewide.

This year, just 39 percent of employers offered wellness programs compared with 38 percent who offered them last year, according to a survey of more than 500 organizations conducted by the Mountain States Employers Council.

Furthermore, most organizations that have wellness programs have not seen decreases in their health-plan costs. Of the Colorado organizations that have wellness plans, 60 percent say they have not lowered costs, according to organizations with wellness programs surveyed by the council.

Only 8 percent say they have seen measurable cost reductions, while 31 percent guessed that they have seen lower costs.

People in the health-care industry say that lowering costs through wellness programs can take time. At Lockton, for example, health-plan expenses have come down gradually in the first four years after starting an outcome-based wellness program.

Not only can wellness programs reduce costs over time, but they can show that companies care about the health of their employees, Lindsay said. Companies also can implement these kinds of programs without breaking their budgets.

“There are all kinds of ways to do this without spending a lot of money,” Lindsay said.

Bad health also can cost employers money, either in lost productivity from employee absences or from workers failing to reach their potential at work because of illness, said Melissa Dodd, director of employer health and wellness for Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

“Poor health has an impact on your business objective,” Dodd said.

However, launching a wellness program still requires a tremendous effort that involves changing organizational culture – as well as incentives.

“It’s hard work,” Dodd said. “It’s not easy to accomplish.”

Kaiser Permanente did an analysis after working with three businesses over two years to offer wellness programs. The insurer found that the two companies offering higher employee incentives and leadership from an employee-led wellness committee saw improvements to health. That included increased physical activity as well as better weight and stress management. Those companies also saw a reduction in smoking and high blood pressure. The company that had low incentives and less leadership support saw fewer health improvements.

Two of the businesses saved an estimated more than $70,000 in medical costs and losses from lack of productivity and the third company saved almost $150,000.

Hospitals, meanwhile, also have sought to offer wellness programs. Banner Health employees visit employers to provide blood pressure screenings, flu shots and even yoga and CPR classes, saving employees a trip elsewhere to improve their health. Those programs, however, are not tied to programs that require employees to show health improvements.

“Our participation remains steady,” said Roxane Conant, wellness senior manager for Banner Health.

Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, a member of Centura Health, has opened wellness centers in Dacono, Westminster and Thornton. Centura’s neighborhood wellness centers, as they’re called, are part of an effort to lower health-care costs by relying less on emergency hospital care, Avista Hospital administrator Robert Stansel said.

Centura has additional wellness centers throughout the Front Range and others coming online soon. The company aims to attract businesses from throughout the region to participate in its wellness programs.

“We’re trying to keep people out of the hospitals and keep them well,” Stansel said.

Steve Lynn can be reached at 970-232-3147, 303-630-1968 or slynn@bizwestmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SteveLynnBW.

Fewer employers offer programs for worker health

Employees at one business that attempted to run a wellness program broke a scale used as part of an effort to curb their weight gain.

That wasn’t because they were obese. Instead, they were trying to sabotage their company’s wellness program, said Bill Lindsay, president of Lockton Benefit Group in Denver. The program had tied weight loss to its health-insurance plans.

The incident underscores the challenges that businesses face incorporating wellness programs into their health plans. Such programs involve preventing or reducing issues or conditions such as hypertension, weight control, diet, blood pressure, tobacco…

Sign up for BizWest Daily Alerts