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Getting Well

Wellness programs can help companies save money while they help their employees meet resolutions

While losing weight, improving fitness and quitting smoking are always among the top three New Year's resolutions for individuals, employers would be wise to help their workers meet those resolutions, health insurance brokers say.

The fewer obese and/or smoking employees a company has, the fewer health insurance claims they file and thus, lower costs for the company and consequently, the worker.

"It all goes together. It's really a pretty simple formula. Containing costs is important to any business and wellness is a great way to control health insurance costs, which as we all know are costs that continually go up if not controlled," said Tim Wyman, president of The Wyman Group, which provides home, life and health insurance as well as financial services for its clients.

Wyman said Obamacare was designed to help companies contain health care costs while making sure more people are insured. The cost containment part of it isn't happening, he said, because companies aren't doing what they need to better control the rates they pay.

"If you are going to control the rates you have to control the number of claims you file with the insurance company. The whole idea behind wellness is to control the number of claims that get filed," Wyman said.

"It used to be that we tried to control the costs of each claim without looking much at how many were filed. Now we look at both because you can have less costly claims, but if you have a lot of them it all adds up for the insurance company. And it affects the rates you pay. Again, it's pretty simple," he said.

Wyman counsels his client companies that there are only two critical factors to consider for their workers if they want to contain health care costs: BMI (body mass index) and smoking cessation. While there are only two, he added, emphasis should be put on the word critical because of how those two factors affect a person's health.

BMI takes into consideration weight and fitness. An obese person is more prone to disease, such as diabetes, and that would lead to many claims being filed. Smoking affects many health aspects as well, with pulmonary and cardiac problems chief among them.

Wyman said he advises company clients to support weight loss programs and even to supplement fitness club dues so they can get their BMI under control.

As far as smoking cessation, he said this is an area where employers may have to be more firm with workers for it to succeed.

"I tell my clients they have to first eliminate smoking any place at the company, including outside on company grounds or in employee cars if they are parked on the grounds. That can help provide impetus to quit smoking because some will figure if they can't smoke for eight or nine hours they're at work, they might as well quit," Wyman said.

He then advises clients to give the employee the proper support to help them quit, including paying for smoking cessation drugs like Chantix or nicotine replacement drugs like patches or gum, or other forms of treatment health insurance doesn't pay for. "There is an upfront cost for the company to do that, but in the long run they will be better off because if an employee has a stroke or heart attack they will pay for it 100 times over," Wyman said.

Counseling support is also critical and he advises people use a state-supported counseling group at 1-866-QUIT-YES. "It's one of the best out there," he said.

Finally, he advises companies to reward those employees who quit smoking or get their BMI under control. Under Illinois law, he said, a company cannot financially reward somebody for quitting smoking, for example, because it is viewed as discriminatory toward those who didn't quit.

But companies can reward those in wellness programs through improved benefits, such as lower deductibles or co-payments. "In that way you cannot penalize those who don't quit smoking or get fit because they would still pay the same as everybody else. But you can reward those who make the effort," he said.

When it comes to smoking cessation, Wyman said, it's a matter of trust. A company has to trust that an employee has quit and doesn't go home every night and smoke in the garage. Companies can establish a policy that says if an employee has been receiving improved benefits through deception it can be a termination offense.

Wyman said companies must also be patient and not throw in the towel on an employee right away. Losing weight and getting fit is not easy and studies show that it takes a smoker an average of seven attempts before he or she actually quits successfully.

"I tell my clients to stay with the employee for however long it takes because all will be better off in the long run. It really isn't business as usual any more for companies who want to make the effort to control costs by controlling the number of claims," he said. "Wellness is a lot of work. But for every $1 a company invests in wellness it gets $6 in return," he said.

And he has seen it work. One client, Wyman said, has gone from having 22 employees who smoke to eight smokers in just two years.

"A company can just sit back and take the health insurance renewal and whatever costs there are or they can be proactive. Not everybody is buying into wellness yet, but it is improving," he said.

Wyman does not steer clients toward any particular wellness program because each has their own unique desires and needs. Some, he said, will find programs that best suit them but most develop their own internally.

Companies can find help getting started at various websites on the Internet.

One such website is simply wellness.com. It has a section of corporate wellness and defines it as follows: "Corporate Wellness has become the new 'buzz phrase' in the business world due to the ever-rising costs of health care. Yet many people are having trouble defining exactly what is meant by Corporate Wellness. Having a true Corporate Wellness program means supporting every employee in the improvement or maintenance of their current state of health. This includes mental, physical, and emotional support to guide employees toward positive lifestyle changes. And everyone knows that healthy employees make productive companies."

Wellness.com says for a company to realize benefits it "must implement a complete Corporate Wellness program that uses a comprehensive, systematic approach that is put into place over an extended period of time. This approach should involve three essential elements: an assessment of each employee, education on various health and wellness topics, and programs and services that facilitate positive lifestyle change. When a company takes this approach, they put their Corporate Wellness program in position for great success."

It also will advise companies on health assessments, the types of incentives they might offer employees who participate and how to track success.

The National Wellness Institute offers similar help at nationalwellness.org. Other organizations will, as well.

"There are a lot of websites that can help a company get started with tips or what have you," Wyman said. "Companies just need to recognize that getting there, regardless of what path they take, is the most important thing," he said.

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