Pay Your Employees To Get Healthy - It Might Work!

Everyone realizes the impact of unhealthy lifestyles on the cost of healthcare. It's really a no-brainer - right? If you smoke, you are a bizillion times more likely to have a lung ailment, etc. If you are overweight - and I am not speaking of the extra 2 lbs on the scale the next morning because you licked the margarita glass with all of the salt on it so you are retaining more water - there are many health conditions attributable to that. So, as an employer employing people with unhealthy lifestyles who see costs continuing to escalate, what should you do?

Wellness programs are back in a big way. Fashionable in the late 80's - early 90's, they kind of went away as there were fewer dollars to spend on these programs that could not exactly give companies the ROI on programs of this nature. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Well, today wellness programs can produce fairly good ROI numbers and they are having some impact on the ability to control costs. I have preached this all along. Tweaking the copay will not improve plan costs long term - figuring out how to control the claims drivers will.

So, how do we do this. Many firms are paying their employees to get healthy. Cash works - it always works. Companies like IBM, and Caesar's in Las Vegas have had great results in incentivising people to quit smoking and lose weight with cold hard cash. The winning weight loss team at Caesars each took home $500 a piece for exercising and losing the pounds. That $500 was a better investment than a potential diabetes claim long term. The cash upfront is always more affordable than the claim on the back end. Make it fun - make it meaningful and have the program reward people along the way.

For more information on how a wellness plan might help your company control costs, contact me.