Corporate Wellness Becomes Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Issue – How to Reduce Workplace Medical Costs.

The Partnership for Avoidance was formed to encourage Fortune 1000 corporations to consider making workforce health a CEO issue and adopt strategies to promote avoidance and wellness.

After several years of double-digit rate increases for health insurance, businesses are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have workers take more responsibility for both costs and health options.

A majority of businesses surveyed feel that the best way for decling costs is financial incentives to encourage staff members to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Nearly 100 percent of companys surveyed say that healthcare costs will be a crucial or meaningful concern over the next five years, as reported by a recent survey by United Benefit Advisors.

More businesss are adopting higher deductible health plans with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and broader disease management (DM) programs in order to control ever-increasing health care costs.

Failure to deal with these issues may be disastrous for an business. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alegent Health lately stated, “I think that we have built a health care machinery we cannot afford. I think we’re choking the economic engine of America.”

In his October 2005 newsletter, Dr. Andrew Weil stated, “I think rising health- care costs are becoming the major economic issue in our nation”. Obesity costs California companies billions of dollars each year.

Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect healthcare costs, employee’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced among the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

As reported by California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it’s an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people  do not even realize that they are obese, which is defined as only 20% above normal weight.

There is a excellent need for additional education on weight and resulting illnesses, and the workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can lead to a meaningful return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although many companys have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing.

In many cases, the healthier employees participated for incentives, like fitness club memberships, but those who needed it most did not take benefit of the program in a meaningful way.

Companies are looking at ways to encourage more workers to purchase into the wellness movement.

A recent webinar hosted by Human Resource Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing and Advertising Group titled, “Healthier Employees; Healthier Bottom Line –  Engaging Employees is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home.

This session provided actionable advice on how corporations are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on worker engagement. It also highlighted how you can develop an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your organization.

Companys can simply no longer ignore the issue of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to reduce health costs, absenteeism and lost productivity.

Workers also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and professional lives. the alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the corporation.