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Wyoming Tribune Eagle Online : Healthy workers keep business costs low
Healthy workers keep business costs low
A fit workforce is an industrious workforce, but how do employers get employees to adopt healthy habits?
By Michelle Dynes
mdynes@wyomingnews.comCHEYENNE — Good driving habits, and not healthy lifestyles, earn consumers cheaper insurance coverage.
But it makes sense to encourage people to exercise more and give up tobacco, said Dr. Brent Sherard, director of the Wyoming Department of Health.
The biggest challenge for health advocates is to change human behavior, he said. The biggest challenge for employers is to provide health care when costs continue to rise. Today’s health-care model also shifts costs onto healthy workers.
“The people who are healthy pay the premiums for the people who are not healthy,” Sherard said during a summit on workplace wellness at Little America Hotel and Resort on Thursday.
Healthy habits delay the onset of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It also reduces the need for medical care, along with health-care costs, he added.
“Reach the Summit: Building a Healthy Wyoming Workforce” is the first time business and industry leaders were asked to learn about the importance of worksite wellness, said Joe Grandpre, chronic disease epidemiologist for the state Department of Health.
In 2002, the average employer paid $18,618 per worker for health care. But programs to promote workplace health cut costs and absenteeism. Early detection screenings catch problems when they are cheaper to treat, he said.
Other solutions such as health savings accounts and wellness incentives also encourage employees to take more responsibility, said Dr. Wendy Lynch, vice president of strategic development for Human Capital Management Services in Cheyenne.
“Who pays for health care?” she said. “You do. Do you want it to come out of your taxes or out of your wages? That is the choice you are offered.”
Patients who cover a higher percentage of the final bill are more likely to keep themselves healthy. Lynch said patients with free health care have 70 percent more doctor visits and 30 percent more hospitalizations than the average patient. Their care also costs 45 percent more.
But free care does not lead to healthier patients. Consumers with low deductibles and nonexistent co-payments also accumulate high medical bills.
“We use (coverage) to our advantage and don’t worry about it because someone else is paying,” she added. “If (employees) share the responsibility, they will think about what they have to lose. That is not a bad thing.”
Thanks for interested article. I agree that people who have healthy habits dont have so serious illness as diabetes, cancer and others, so they dont have to pay money to doctors. In my opinion the employees should think not only about their profit, but also about their workers health.
@Tiffany@Bowtrol IBS -
employers do need to worry about their employees health, but a growing number of middle income jobs are being thought of as having a disposable workforce. It has been that way for decades with low income workers. Because they work they don’t qualify for state healthcare most of the time so if they get sick they either go to work and give it to everyone or stay home and loose income for themselves but also cost the employer in productivity. Having everyone covered by a health plan is one of the things it is going to take to turn our economy around on a permanent basis.
The big cost of health care is human behavior – which your blog rightly says! You can’t legislate
smoking, not exercising, and eating at Micky Dees 5 time a week.
I was watching CNBC the other day and a doctor was saying that many patients don’t even take their medications correctly or don’t get them re-filled — causing a recurring health problem that is very expensive for all of us – whether they take it out of our paychecks or taxes!