Controlling health care costs by adopting a healthier lifestyle has been gaining more attention and supporters in both the private and public sectors in recent years.
One new initiative comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which announced on June 23 that it will use a new $10 million fund to help promote workplace health and wellness programs.
The initiative, with funds from the Affordable Care Act”™s Prevention and Public Health Fund, is aimed at improving workplace environments so they can support healthy lifestyles and reduce risk factors for chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, the department said.
Funds will be awarded through a competitive contract to organizations with the expertise to work with employers nationwide to develop workplace health programs in small and large worksites.
“It will be awarded to up to two contractors. This is being done under what”™s called a small-business set-aside,” said Wendy Heaps, senior policy adviser at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is overseeing the HHS funding. “In the end, we will have 70 to 100 employers participating in this initiative across the country.”
Investing in health promotion
“In our view, especially in the current economic environment, we believe companies can”™t afford not to invest in health promotion because so much of a company”™s bottom line is threatened by health care costs and lost productivity related to chronic diseases,” Heaps said.
There have been evaluations that demonstrate that comprehensive workplace health promotion programs can actually have a return-on-investment of $3 for every $1 spent over a two- to five-year period, she explained.
“It”™s not an immediate payback but if companies invest, they can clearly save money in the long term.”
Participating companies will be expected to educate employees about good health practices and establish work environments that promote physical activity and proper nutrition and discourage tobacco use.
Laurel Pickering, executive director at Northeast Business Group on Health, in New York, has also been actively engaged in promoting worksite health programs. This non-profit group represents employers”™ perspective on national health policy issues and offers consultations to businesses to tackle their health care problems.
“I think it”™s really important for the government to be doing this. And in addition to this, they are doing other things like offering incentives to employers of wellness and health promotion programs,” said Pickering, who assists employers in New York and Connecticut.
“Over the past four, five years, a lot of companies began focusing on health, nutrition and wellness promotion as a way to actually reduce their health care cost,” she said.
Companies have done many other things like increasing co-pays and deductibles but they haven”™t really lowered health care costs, according to Pickering. “They are now realizing that if they can actually help keep employees healthy, that”™s where most of the cost lies. And if they can get at the foundation of the problem, that will help lower the health care cost in the long term.”
Pickering advised that small businesses with little resources can still adopt workplace health programs at no cost.
“If the smaller or mid-sized company provides health benefits, I would direct the employer to first look toward its health plan,” she recommended.
Health plans right now have many resources regarding health and wellness for member employers. They range from doing a health-risk appraisal, to online programs around weight management and tobacco cessation.
“The businesses would already be paying for resources that are available to them through their health plan,” she said.
Companies should also start their own wellness challenges, whether it”™s about exercise or weight loss, she added, and these are things that aren”™t expensive to organize.
Many local businesses are actively promoting health and wellness programs. For example, Port Chester-based Aquarius Capital, which offers services in finance, insurance and risk management to local companies, said it sees many wellness initiatives implemented by its clients.
Some employers are putting in smoker-use penalties for contribution rates, a 10- to 25-percent load on employee contributions for tobacco users, according to Aquarius Capital President Michael Frank.
Some employers are discouraging having candy sales or candies sitting around in the break room. Companies are also offering gym discounts and are regularly organizing company functions like walking events, he said.
I think I am missing something in this article. The government is going to award a company(s)$10,000,000 to implement wellness programs for up to 100 small employers across the US? That is $100,000 per employer. That seems like a big price tag to provide benefits for a low percentage of the small companies in the U.S. What are other small employers going to gain from this program?