BodyBuilding.com hands out cash for fitness book reports. Healthwise offers Wellness Bucks and nap rooms. The local branch of the American Heart Association competes for Wii privileges.
Workers of all shapes and sizes are being enticed by cash and prizes that employers hope will hedge against growing health-coverage costs. Company wellness programs that used to start and end with smoking-cessation support and gym reimbursements are morphing into menus of freebies and discounts.
SPEND TO SAVE MONEY
Most businesses are quick to say their first priority is employee health for its own sake. But they admit saving money is a factor in the new financial incentives.
Research published in December in the Harvard Business Review — which drew on a site visit to Healthwise, the nonprofit health-information organization in Boise — suggests that offering perks and fixing employees’ health problems can yield a 200 percent to 600 percent return on investment.
“Wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative,” the authors wrote. “Newer evidence tells a different story. With tax incentives and grants available under recent federal health care legislation, U.S. companies can use wellness programs to chip away at their enormous health care costs, which are only rising with an aging work force.”
Cindy Hodges, who runs health benefits at Nampa-based Saltzer Medical Group, chose this year’s health plan for employees with one thing at the front of her mind: Claims in 2010 were about 15 percent higher than they should have been.
“It was ugly,” she said. “It’s not cancer, surgeries, or whatever driving the health costs. It’s everybody going and getting their blood-pressure medications.”
So she instituted a program that Blue Cross of Idaho offers employers: Employees pay lower premiums if they commit to tackling health issues like obesity and high cholesterol. Smokers are automatically disqualified from the discounts.
Blue Cross, the state’s largest health insurer, tested the program on its own employees, giving participants a $350 deductible, compared with $1,000 for the holdouts. Health screenings are one commitment employees make to get the lower price.
“We’ve had numerous people who simply didn’t know they had problems” until getting that check-up, said Karen Early, Blue Cross spokeswoman. “Some of them were 30-year-old men.”
LONG-TERM SAVINGS
The second-biggest Idaho insurer, Regence BlueShield, gives its own employees $200 gift cards for eating right and exercising.
“I’m really focusing on the fact that there’s a lot of other costs” related to poor health, on top of medical and prescription claims, said William McKinney, vice president of health and wellness for Regence.
“Depression, obesity, those types of issues come to the top when you look at the entire costs,” he said. Heading off those problems cuts down absenteeism and low productivity, he said.
Hodges said it will be hard to prove how much Saltzer saves through a premium promotion, but at least getting a few hundred reluctant medical personnel into a doctor’s office could help with red flags.
“Obviously, you can’t say, ‘They didn’t have that heart attack because they went and had their annual physical,’” she said.
THE CARROT AND STICK
Before the switchover, Saltzer Medical Group had a program Hodges calls “the carrot,” in which employees who reported healthy behaviors earned extra money for their medical spending accounts.
They had “low, low, low participation that way,” she said. “The stick” — a penalty of $25 higher premiums — “is definitely working a lot better.”
That isn’t the answer for everyone.
Near the Greenbelt, Keynetics has a few sweeteners for joggers and cyclists. The company pays entry fees for six races a year, ranging from 5K walks to marathons. Last year, it covered 45 race entries.
Keynetics, which helps creators of digital goods sell their products and provides fraud-fighting technology to businesses, also hands out cash stipends for walking and biking to work.
“If you have a healthier work force, you’ll have lower expenses,” said Kate Lenz, director of human resources. “But we’re not in a situation where if an employee doesn’t participate, they’re penalized.”
A few other employers have gotten creative with their treats.
BodyBuilding.com’s 400 employees are taking the most bait from the book report program. The company pays from $35 to $50 for one-page summaries of books from the company library. Sarah Jones, internal communications specialist, said she gets from 150 to 200 summaries — or up to $10,000 worth — per month.
Then there’s the annual Employee Transformation Contest, which has 74 people competing to change their bodies in three months this year. First place gets a lavish vacation or a cruise to Mexico.
BodyBuilding.com’s programs were enough to light a fire under Jones.
“When I started working for this company, I smoked (and) drank a few Dr. Peppers every day,” Jones said. She said she is healthier now.
FOR THE UNINSURED
Some employers can’t or won’t provide health coverage for their staffs. They chip in instead with free services or pre-emptive strikes against poor health as they look ahead to a date when they will offer health insurance.
Dave Romero, co-founder of Tsuvo, wants to start offering health coverage in the next year. But for now, he’s gathering his team every day at 7 a.m. for a deep-breathing session. Tsuvo specializes in Web development, Internet marketing and search-engine optimization.
Patricia Kempthorne’s Twiga Foundation, which promotes family-friendly policies in workplaces, does not cover employee health benefits. Instead, it brings health providers into the office to do medical screenings and pays for the blood tests, Kempthorne said.
FEDERAL OFFICIALS FOLLOW SUIT
Local employers are ahead of the federal government in taking the rewards route.
As part of the new health care law, the government is resorting to incentives to cut costs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday put $100 million on the table for Medicaid enrollees to quit smoking and lose weight. States can apply for the grants to pay out rewards ranging from cash and retail gift cards to reduced Medicaid program fees or funding for special services.
Citing the success of private-sector rewards programs, CMS Administrator Donald Berwick said the agency hopes these perks will reverse unhealthy habits among Medicaid recipients and “also lower the nation’s overall health care costs.”
Audrey Dutton: 377-6448
