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Wellness Takes Spotlight As Employers Attempt to Offset Rising Healthcare Costs

Rising healthcare costs and concerns for employees’ financial wellness and retirement preparedness are nudging employers to re-evaluate their benefit offerings.

Wellness programs have jumped notably since 2011, when 60% of employers said they offered some type of wellness programs, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2015 Employee Benefits Survey. In 2015, 70% of employers said they offer wellness programs, up from 62% last year.

“Wellness benefits provide employers with a preventative approach that can reduce health care expenses for organizations over the long haul,” says Evren Esen, director of SHRM’s survey programs. “Rising health care costs also remained a primary driver for how other benefit costs are allocated, as employers are still evaluating the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”

Wellness programs help employers increase engagement and retention, she noted Monday during SHRM’s annual conference in Las Vegas. “We see organizations tackling wellness on a variety of fronts,” she added.

She noted companies implementing wellness programs targeting chronic conditions would likely see the most bang for their buck in the long run. The SHRM research noted another notable spike over the five-year span, with smoking cessation programs jumping 8% and preventive programs specifically targeting employees with chronic conditions jumping 7%.

“When organizations are smart at strategizing benefits, they look at costs and what benefits employees want,” she says. And while savings won’t be immediate, she says including smart programs will prove effective.

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Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA, Group Health Insurance Broker and Agent with Cosby Insurance Group, with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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‘Wellness or Else’ : Coming Soon to a Workplace Near You

U.S. companies are increasingly penalizing workers who decline to join “wellness” programs, embracing an element of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law that has raised questions about fairness in the workplace.

Beginning in 2014, the law known as Obamacare raised the financial incentives that employers are allowed to offer workers for participating in workplace wellness programs and achieving results. The incentives, which big business lobbied for, can be either rewards or penalties – up to 30 percent of health insurance premiums, deductibles, and other costs, and even more if the programs target smoking.

Among the two-thirds of large companies using such incentives to encourage participation, almost a quarter are imposing financial penalties on those who opt-out, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health and benefits consultant Towers Watson (For graphic see link.reuters.com/byr73w)

For some companies, however, just signing up for a wellness program isn’t enough. They’re linking financial incentives to specific goals such as losing weight, reducing cholesterol, or keeping blood glucose under control. The number of businesses imposing such outcomes-based wellness plans is expected to double this year to 46 percent, the survey found.

“Wellness-or-else is the trend,” said workplace consultant Jon Robison of Salveo Partners.

Incentives typically take the form of cash payments or reductions in employee deductibles. Penalties include higher premiums and lower company contributions for out-of-pocket health costs.

Financial incentives, many companies say, are critical to encouraging workers to participate in wellness programs, which executives believe will save money in the long run.

“Employers are carrying a major burden of healthcare in this country and are trying to do the right thing,” said Stephanie Pronk, a vice president at benefits consultant Aon Hewitt. “They need to improve employees’ health so they can lead productive lives at home and at work, but also to control their healthcare costs.”

But there is almost no evidence that workplace wellness programs significantly reduce those costs. That’s why the financial penalties are so important to companies, critics and researchers say. They boost corporate profits by levying fines that outweigh any savings from wellness programs.

“There seems little question that you can make wellness programs save money with high enough penalties that essentially shift more healthcare costs to workers,” said health policy expert Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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Workplace Wellness Programs Can Flag Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

As workplace wellness programs become more common among U.S. employers, benefit managers and their wellness vendors are uniquely positioned to help promote early diagnosis and treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a health conference speaker said.

“Every employer and indeed every employee in America needs to know what COPD is and make sure that they’re focused on getting people diagnosed as early as possible,” John Walsh, co-founder and president of the COPD Foundation, said Monday during a panel discussion at the 19th annual National Business Coalition on Health conference in Washington.

COPD refers to chronic diseases of the lungs, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Approximately 12 million Americans have been diagnosed with a form of COPD, and another estimated 12 million have the disease but have not been diagnosed.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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