Wellness Programs help relieve worker stress, decrease bad habits, and increase productivity in the workplace. Best of all perhaps? It can save everyone money on their medical bills.

The epidemic of chronic diseases is starting to erode our nation, and many of these chronic diseases that Americans have is due to their unhealthy life habits. Knowing this, health care officials believe that the best offense is a great defense; preventative healthcare measures are now more popular than ever, and now the insurance carriers and employers can hold wellness programs that are either sponsored by an insurance carrier, or developed one in house to try and help their employees see the benefits of wellness, both in cost and in health. It is also speculated that, under the Affordable Health Care Act, wellness programs will become a necessary addition to certain businesses. The benefits of having wellness programs are numerous; it helps educate the employees on proper nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, it helps establish positive habits such as exercise programs and stress reduction programs, and if employees take part in these wellness programs they may even be reimbursed for part of their premiums.

What is the bottom line? Why should I care as an employer? Why should I care as an Employee? Here are some statistics to help you see the benefit of wellness programs

This may seem very obvious, but unhealthy employees visit doctors more often incurring higher medical costs yearly for themselves, and depending on the size of the claim and the size of the business, increase the medical costs for the employer. Group rates can definitely increase due to claims, and in fact, they often do (again, depending on the size of both the business and the claim). On top of visiting the doctor more, unhealthy employees also have a much higher chance of suffering from chronic diseases. The surprising fact is 75% of American medical costs come from chronic diseases. Most individuals don’t know that statistic because they don’t know how expensive medical care is for those that suffer from these preventative chronic diseases, which most can be alleviated or completely subside from a change in lifestyle and diet. Imagine the great amount of Americans that are obese, have high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and so on, because of their poor lifestyle choices. These individuals may not know that they are going down an unhealthy road simply because they are not educated on the subject.

Understand the Return on Investment

If you can educate your employees on wellness, you can keep help keep them out of the high-risk category, saving your company, and your employees, money and their health.

The Format of Wellness programs

This post, I will be going over two major categories of Wellness: Nutrition and fitness, and mental health care.

Wellness Programs instill healthy diets and lifestyles

As stated in the above paragraph, eating unhealthy and living a sedentary lifestyle will dramatically increase the chances of producing certain chronic conditions that are avoidable. Obesity, which is one of the major issues the American population is currently facing, is in large part caused by poor diets and little to no exercise. I actually just had the honor of meeting a gold medalist Olympian this week at a seminar who spoke about how those who exercised for around 45 minutes three to four times a week had a much higher quality of life than those that never exercised. He also went over why it is so important to get this idea instilled in the minds of the population as early as possible; those that had sedentary lives in their youth normally had sedentary lives when they mature, and the same is true when they are exercising in their youth and grow up to be fit adults. Some great ways to start this off in house is to try serving healthier food for lunch, challenge everyone to cardio workouts after or before work, or any other way you could think that of that would fit your company culture best. Remember, you can call your insurance carrier and see what they can offer you. I have seen many carriers’ list of wellness workshops, and they are very flexible and very good (I actually attended one this week. The speaker was riveting). Lastly, some other benefits that select health insurance carriers offer are: gym membership discounts, weight watches, biometric screenings, online portals to help employees with certain wellness questions, and some wellness discounts on certain participating providers.

 

Mental Health

Everyone seems to be more stressed than usual these days, more depressed than usually, and more emotionally imbalanced. Mental health is one of the areas that wellness programs try to focus on because it can be just as important as your physical health, and many studies have confirmed that the way you feel emotionally actually does affect the way you physically feel. Striving to balance one’s life is often a hard and arduous endeavor, but with the help of wellness workshops, mediation training, or classes on managing stress, the journey seems much less daunting. Imagine the great amount of workers you may have that are currently living with poor mental health; not only is it catastrophic for their wellbeing, it is also bad for the companies. Those that have chronic stress may experience presenteeism, which is when an individual is at work but they are so mentally distant their work suffers, and this is obviously a condition that can cause harm to both the individual and the business. If there were programs made to help alleviate these mental health issues, why wouldn’t you want to partake in them?

I hope that, from reading this post, you have learned more about wellness programs, examples of some programs, and as well, the ROI you can obtain from minimizing your risk for loss by a condition that can be prevented by these Wellness Programs. In closing, I would like to leave you with a few top programs that a Zywave Wellness Benefits Survey captured in 2011 (these programs are still highly relevant and used today). The top programs were – Health Risk Assessments, Weight Management/Weight Loss Programs, Health/Wellness Newsletters, Smoking Cessation Programs, and Nutrition Counseling/Education. Hopefully those will help you gather some more ideas to get started!

Reference for the top five wellness programs: Zywave 2011 Wellness Survey

Additional Disclaimer – Although I am an Insurance broker and a professional in the field, the Health Care laws are ever-changing, especially in the age of the Affordable Health Care Act, and the laws, information, opinions, or understandings that I have written about may be obsolete by the time you come across them and I take no legal responsibility for what actions you may or may not take because of it. To keep yourself safe, please seek updated professional advice, because changes are happening and I would like to keep everyone safe from any misleading or dead information. Please check out the “Terms and Conditions” page for more information and/or bookmark my blog for upcoming changes and updates to the ACA. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!