Originally published September 12 2005
More companies offer wellness programs to employees
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
An increasing number of companies and businesses across the country are offering wellness programs, like classes on how to stop smoking and nutrition classes, to their employees in an attempt to control skyrocketing health care costs.
Ranging from nutrition and smoking cessation classes to the distribution of pedometers so that employees can count their steps per day, the current wellness resurgence features an increase in the number of both wellness programs and firms offering financial incentives to encourage worker participation.
Last month, Highmark Inc. launched a program called Lifestyle Returns that enables companies to reward wellness program participants with everything from discounted insurance premiums and expanded benefits to good old-fashioned cash.
Late last year, UPMC Health Plan initiated a similar effort that provided incentives for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center employees to complete a wellness assessment.
The health system is now developing work-site wellness programs to help employees reduce their risks, a test that could help it market wellness products to other employers.
The wellness push fits with the consumer empowerment rhetoric surrounding both the movement toward increased cost-sharing with employees and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), insurance options that ask consumers to take more responsibility for their health-care costs.
Companies look at the aggregate information about employee risk factors and then provide resources for people to lower their risks -- whether it's targeting smokers by offering cessation classes or trying to address obesity by making it easier for workers to exercise.
About 93 percent of workers completed the form, said Michael Culyba, the vice president for medical affairs at UPMC Health Plan.
Wellness programs are part of a broader movement that is seen shifting more of the responsibility toward controlling health-care costs onto individuals, Culyba said.
HSAs and high-deductible insurance plans are being adopted by a growing number of employers with a goal not only of reining in their health care costs but providing consumers with incentives to judiciously use care.
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