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Payers and employers are demonstrating that wellness programs can curb increases in healthcare costs and improve workforce productivity as employees become more involved in their health.
[See also: Finding the ROI in workplace wellness]
Health plans shared their programs and results at the session on "Wellness, Prevention and Incentives: Moving the Needle" on Thursday at the 2013 AHIP Institute in Las Vegas.
With hard evidence available and the added benefit of increased awards for wellness programs through the Affordable Care Act, employers think wellness programs will work, said Ron Trammel, manager, health promotion and education, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST), which has a wellness certification program that targets mid-sized employers, but he warned, "Employers need to want to invest in a worksite program."
To participate in BCBST's wellness certification program, employer groups agree to sponsor quarterly wellness activities, meet with the BCBST team at least twice a year, and have their progress evaluated annually.
After completing the first year of the wellness certification program, employer groups receive a 2 percent to 4 percent premium credit. "In year two, we want them to start sharing participation data and movement from one risk category to another," Trammel said.
[See also: Workplace wellness programs save money through cost shifting, study says]
Wellness, said Tom Meier, vice president, product development, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), parent of BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, is "as much about care and cost avoidance as it is about cost management. It's better to reach people before they are at risk, and better to reach at-risk individuals before full-blown chronic conditions require care management," he said.
So the company has a variety of products to fit different commitment goals of the employees and company managers it works with.
"You don't have to have much money in incentives to move the needle," Meier said. One company with which HCSC works only had $100 to reward employees. It focused its efforts on raising awareness, and after three years in the program, the employer realized lower per-member per-year costs, while the costs rose for those employees who did not participate.
For a wellness program to succeed, senior leadership buy-in and participation is a must.
Emily Light, manager, clinical account management with MVP Health Care, a not-for-profit insurance company in New York, New Hampshire and Vermont, helps manage a wellness program it created with grocer Price Chopper for the grocer's employees. The program began with a weight-loss challenge.
Once the excitement of the first year of the program passed she said, it became especially important to have senior leadership's continued support and participation in order to sustain the program because they control the funding for the program.
[See also: Disruptive Innovators: CEO Champions]