LOUISVILLE, KY – Health plans and large employer groups are looking to implement best practices and quantify ROI to validate wellness programs with incentives.
Some health plans, like Humana, have found success focusing on strategies that go beyond member participation to retention.
Humana’s success lies in its integration of its resources and activities, development of a push-pull consumer engagement campaign, coordination of its multiple touch points and continual evaluation of its program impact, said Philip Smeltzer, strategy leader in wellness, in a Corporate Research Group Webinar on wellness incentives.
“Our incentive strategy is to move the entire population just a little bit,” he said. That means getting consumers to use office visits for preventive care, for example.
Humana provides a $75 incentive to members to use phone coaching, which is critical to program retention.
Thus far, more than 53 percent of participants haven’t returned to smoking after 180 days in the company’s smoking cession program. More than 58 percent of participants lost weight in the weight management/physical activity program. Of the participants with a body mass index of greater than 30, 29 percent lost more than 5 percent of their body weight and 10 percent lost more than 10 percent of their body weight.
More than 47 percent reported improved and better management of back pain, while more than 56 percent decreased their personal stress symptoms after enrolling in the stress management program.
In the nutrition program, 95 percent have reported positive changes in their eating habits.
The necessary shift from sickness to wellness will help drive down rising healthcare costs, said Michael Samuelson, president and CEO of the Health and Wellness Institute, in the CRG Webinar.
Employers have a responsibility in the wellness continuum, he said.
“The general notion of financial incentives in wellness programs is a good idea,” said Ron Goetzel, founding director of the Cornell University Institute for Health and Productivity Studies.
The catch is that organizations must implement it correctly. While it’s a good idea to tell C-level managers to expect documented ROI within three to five years, Goetzel said a comprehensive program must be fully developed before putting it into place.