Prevention, wellness programs trim health care costs

Wellness programs that emphasize prevention, education and incentives are helping some area businesses reduce health care costs and establish a healthier work force.

Identifying risks

Improving employee wellness begins with identifying potential health problems.

Gary Brown is corporate director of human resources for SRC Holdings Corporation, which has 12 different op-erations and employs around 1,000 people.

"We discovered a long time ago that the most effective way that you can control health care costs in your business is to try to keep people from having to go to the doctor or try to catch something early," Brown said. "Anything you can catch at an early stage, of course, keeps your costs down."

To that end, many companies conduct annual health risk appraisals. Brown said that SRC contracts with health risk assessment companies that conduct cholesterol screenings, blood pressure checks and other assessments to let employees know what kind of shape they're in and help identify possible health risks.

City Utilities' wellness program has evolved over the years, said Sally Brackett, RN, a St. John's contract em-ployee who works on site at CU.

"It started as a smaller program, primarily an exercise program," she said. "But we decided there's more to wellness than exercise alone, so we started doing more."

Prevention is now a focus of the program. "Having an annual physical is very important," she said. CU also holds health risk appraisals once a year, and flu shots and cholesterol screenings are available for employees and their spouses, as well as CU retirees, she said. According to Brackett, approximately 400 employees, spouses and retirees participate in the wellness program.

St. John's Health System also provides health risk appraisals free of charge to its employees, said Kaylie Dinkins, em-ployee wellness coordinator. "Body composition, blood pressure, cholesterol and several different things are checked," she said.

Susan Blackard, vice president for wellness-corporate health services and Hammons Heart Institute, started St. John's wellness program 15 years ago.

"We've tried to just keep making it better," she said. "We started out with health risk assessments, but you've got to go beyond that."

Educating employees

Education is an important component of employee wellness. Once a month, St. John's holds wellness forums in which speakers address various health related topics, Dinkins said. "We also have a wellness library where they can check out books and videos," she added. "We try to keep them informed."

Brown said SRC has a well-educated work force. "We're an employee-owned business, and they understand how health care costs affect the financial condition of the company," he said. "Our number one cost-containment feature over the past several years has been the education of the employees."

Newsletters and bulletin board postings are used to keep employees in-formed of the company's health care costs on a monthly basis.

"We try to send as much information as we can to the home," he said, "because a lot of medical decisions are family medical decisions."

Encouraging health

To encourage employees to exercise regularly, CU offers a reimbursement of $100 per year to attend the fitness center of their choice, Brackett said.

SRC has fitness centers of its own, called wellness centers.

A fitness coordinator works in the centers to assist employees with their exercise programs. The fitness coordinator is also certified and qualified to follow a doctor's directives working with employees on minor rehabilitation needs, such as muscle strain or back problems, Brown said.

The wellness centers are open to all employees and their dependents, Brown said. "We always include the dependents. We have as many spouses and children coming into our wellness centers as we do employees."

In most businesses, about 30 percent to 35 percent of health care costs are from the employees themselves, Brown said, with 65 percent to 70 percent of the costs coming from the dependents.

The company also has contracted the services of a wellness coordinator, who is taking information from SRC's health care claims and health risk appraisals, Brown said. Wellness plans for the company's employees will be created based on the wellness coordinator's analysis.

Approximately 800 employees utilize St. John's fitness center, which is available to them at a discounted rate, Blackard said. In addition, exercise equipment is stationed in all St. John's clinics, according to Dinkins.

Incentives

Once employees have the knowledge and resources to improve their health, Blackard said, "we have to reward them for making lifestyle changes."

Last year St. John's began an incentive program. Participants earn points for ex-ercising regularly, taking part in recreational activities, and attending health-related classes, Dinkins said.

Besides earning prizes, such as T-shirts or gift certificates, "employees who re-ceive a certain amount of points each month can get a reduction on their health insurance premiums," she said.

Of St. John's 7,200 employees, about 2,500 participate in the incentive program, Blackard said.

Employees don't have to be a part of the incentive program to take advantage of offerings like stress management and nutrition classes, she said, "but if you are doing the program, you get points for attending."

SRC also implemented an incentive plan this year, Brown said. Employees, who pay a portion of their health care premiums, can get up to a 20 percent discount for participating in the program.

"We have four criteria," he said. First, employees and their dependents should be nonsmokers. Second, they should be on a regular exercise program. Third, they should have an annual physical or health risk appraisal. And finally, they must have a primary care physician.

"Studies have shown if people will do these four things, they will have a healthier lifestyle, as well as keep health care costs down," he said.

City Utilities also utilizes an incentive program that combines exercise and healthy habits, Brackett said. Besides offering certain incentives for having an annual physical, she said, "we give prizes for limiting fat intake, drinking 64 ounces of water a day, and attending healthy brown bag luncheons." During the monthly luncheons, speakers discuss topics such as heart disease, sugar diabetes, and sleeping disorders.

St. John's has several programs that branch off from the wellness program, Dinkins said.

New Images is a weight management program in which participants set attainable weight goals and learn about heal-thy eating and activity habits. Changing Hearts, a heart disease reduction program, is focused on adopting healthy eating habits, lowering cholesterol and ex-ercising.

About 700 St. John's employees have gone through the tobacco cessation program called The Road to Freedom, Blackard said, with 41 percent of participants remaining smoke-free after one year.