According to a new survey, employers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio believe that worksite wellness programs are better than high-deductible health plans for managing healthcare costs.
Cowden Associates, Inc., a human resources, compensation and employee benefit consulting firm, released highlights of its Seventh Annual Tri-State Area Employee Benefit Survey, which was conducted in 2007-2008 and surveyed 274 employers in the three states. Survey participants included for-profit, nonprofit and governmental employers. Size of employers ranged from less than 100 employees to more than 10,000.
"Competition for talented employees is strong, and employee benefits play a critical role in attracting and retaining those employees," said Cowden Associates President and CEO Jere Cowden. "As regional employers work to attract and retain talent in part through strong employee benefits plans, our regional survey data allow them to benchmark themselves against their regional competition and develop attractive, cost-effective plans."
According to the survey, although the percentage of survey participants who offer high-deductible health plans as their primary plan increased from 2.5 percent to nearly 9 percent, more than 84 percent of participants who do not offer such plans said they are not interested in one or not likely to offer one in the future.
"Despite the increase in employers offering high-deductible plans, the future outlook for such plans as a solution for employers to contain their healthcare costs is not good," said Cowden Associates Executive Vice President Vince Wolf. "Most employers in the region are not offering a high-deductible plan today and do not plan to in the future. This finding is strikingly different than the popular notion that high-deductible plans are growing rapidly."
This year, slightly more than half of the participants indicated they have employee worksite wellness programs in place, and 53 percent of those participants not offering worksite wellness plans indicated they are considering them. Thirty-six percent, nearly triple last year's 13 percent, indicated they offer incentives to participate in their wellness programs. Among the most popular are exercise, smoking cessation, weight management and nutrition programs.
"Preventable chronic diseases account for a large portion of healthcare costs," Wolf said. "Employers are increasingly recognizing that the best solution to managing these costs is by making a long-term commitment to employees' health and supporting them through a variety of worksite wellness initiative."
"Survey responses tell us that worksite wellness programs are the future of employee health care cost management. Employers are already looking toward the next generation of wellness to manage costs," he added.