Business Alabama / December 2011 / Working Out at Work

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Working Out at Work

Alabama companies focus on wellness to trim health care costs.

What’s the easiest way to hold down health care costs? Don’t get sick.

That’s no joke – employers and insurers are recognizing that helping employees get and stay healthy through corporate wellness programs can improve their financial and physical bottom line.

A Model Program

Consider Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. in Huntsville.

It’s more than just a perk for employees. “We wouldn’t implement a program if it didn’t have significant business value,” says TBE President Rex Geveden. The wellness program fits that all-important criterion.

TBE wellness efforts started 30 years ago with an industrial nurse teaching aerobics in the cafeteria after work, he says.

But in 2006, Teledyne Brown made a major upgrade, hiring a wellness program manager. That has paid off tremendously, Geveden says. The company now has wellness and fitness classes, two on-site fitness centers (one in Huntsville, one at a Knoxville site) and classes at its Huntsville HQ and its facility at NASA in Redstone Arsenal. A popular “Go for the Gold” program offers financial rewards for employees who complete certain tasks or benchmarks, and their efforts are recognized with an annual awards ceremony.

“The results are pretty striking,” Geveden says. “If you look at cost-per-employee per year in terms of claims paid, in 2005 we were at about the national average, and we are more than 20 percent below that national average now, just five years later. It’s remarkable, the gap gets bigger every year we have had the program.”

Success inspires success, says Jennifer Geist, who manages the TBE wellness program. One manager lost 100 pounds and now talks to employees about how to make changes themselves, she says. “I think there is an employee inspiration component, that when you see that success, other employees take it on, too, and try to get healthier, as well.”

TBE is self-insured through Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and tight times or not, the wellness program is safe, Geveden says. “The cost of the program pales in comparison to the savings we achieve. It’s an extremely net positive investment. It’s a modest investment for us, with a very high payoff.”

The program has won accolades from state and national organizations, and it’s popular with employees, too. Some 74 percent of the firm’s 1,100 employees participate today, up from less than half four years ago.

Stay Out of the System

“The best way to navigate the healthcare system is to stay out of it,” says Caroline Bundy, who oversees the YMCA of Greater Birmingham Community Health Initiatives, which offers fitness classes and wellness counseling at area Ys or at workplaces.

Especially in a tight economy, relatively inexpensive wellness programs are becoming more common because they work, experts say. The payoffs come in lower premiums and claims costs, fewer sick days, more productive and happier employees, fewer worker’s compensation claims and less “presentee-ism” – a term for people who are at work but performing below par because they are sick with acute or poorly managed chronic conditions.

Nationally, 77 percent of employers have some sort of wellness program, and for every dollar spent on these programs, there’s an average $3 savings in health care and productivity costs, according to figures from the Wellness Council of America, a non-profit group that provides wellness data and assistance to insurance companies and corporations.

The return on investment is obvious for large corporations with self-insured healthcare plans that pay actual claims costs. Small to medium-sized companies, where premiums aren’t so directly tied to claims, may not see a difference so soon, says Ame H. Kehoe, UnitedHealthcare vice president, major accounts sales, Gulf States Region.

“Because you don’t know how many people will actually participate and have success, wellness programs are really things you do for the long haul,” Kehoe says.

“The participation rates are really key,” says Koko Mackin, vice president of corporate communications and community relations for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama. “You need to have at least 50 percent of your employees participating, and ideally they’d like to have 75 percent of employees participating in order to get the best return on your dollar.”

Something as small as a $10 gift card has been shown to increase participation in wellness efforts, such as online health assessments, free on-site screenings for cholesterol or blood sugar or lunch-and-learn educational programs, plan organizers say.

It is, of course, in insurance companies’ best interest to encourage and support better employee health, so they offer assistance setting up wellness programs and many free online programs that employees can do on their own.

Wellness programs must accommodate all employees, Mackin says, but that doesn’t have to be difficult. For example, someone not physically capable of meeting a fitness challenge could still go to nutrition classes or take online health screenings. Programs must also meet the privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which can be easy if the employer hires an outside expert to manage the program and sees only aggregate data.

BCBS of Alabama insures 86 percent of the individual market and 96 percent of the small group market in Alabama, Mackin says. Some of its online programs are offered free to the public, with even more options for members whether or not they have access to an employer-sponsored wellness plan.

“We want all Alabamians to be healthier,” Mackin says. “If you look at the ratings, we are number one in diabetes, number two in obesity, and we rank third in high blood pressure and we rank fourth in physical inactivity.”

Those chronic conditions are the most costly issues to treat, but they can often be improved dramatically through behavioral changes and proper medical management. So, most wellness programs (and insurance companies’ free programs) focus on improving physically and financially devastating chronic conditions through tactics like weight loss and nutrition support, tobacco cessation programs and beginner’s fitness challenges.

Small companies testing the wellness waters can start out with e-mail blasts about those free online programs, says Kehoe. “A lot of these things don’t cost a lot of money.”

There are also often free or low-cost community resources available through health departments or other groups, says the Y’s Bundy.

Employees need help getting and staying fit especially in tight times, too, Bundy says, because many are paying higher health insurance premiums and higher deductibles at the same time they face other financial challenges. “If you’ve got your power bill sitting on the coffee table and your gym membership sitting on the coffee table, which one do you pay first? You pay your power bill,” Bundy says.

Even if a company isn’t ready to organize a wellness program, the Y can work with it so that gym dues can be paid out of flexible spending accounts if a person has a doctor’s prescription for exercise to manage a chronic condition, Bundy says. That can at least save some tax dollars for employees.

Health Providers Participate

HealthSouth Corp. employees see the physical effects of illness and injury daily, so it made sense for the healthcare company to hire a wellness director to start a new program recently, says Employee Benefits Director Marca Pearson.

“What we do is very hands-on physical rehabilitation, and for us to be able to give the very best care we’ve got to have the very best people,” Pearson says. They started with some BCBS programs and have now added their own touches—Zumba classes after work and walk stations at desk-bound corporate headquarters where staff members can jump on a treadmill outfitted with a computer and a phone, allowing them to walk through a conference call or webinar, she says.

“Anytime you invest in someone’s health, there’s bound to be a return,” Pearson says, but she doesn’t expect returns to be as significant as some predict. “I feel like all the articles I’ve read assure us there are going to be monetary gains,” Pearson says, “but quite honestly, I hope those gains just allow us to keep pace with medical inflation.”

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is another healthcare provider that has decided it’s time to help physicians, nurses and other staff help themselves to better health. “Executives at UAB understand that our patients have been our priority, but it’s just as important that our people are getting the same care and the same health-prevention strategies,” says UAB Employee Wellness Coordinator Lauren Whitt.

UAB’s strategy is different than most, Whitt says, designed to incorporate healthy options into existing daily routines—for example, mapped and measured walking paths within the hospital, vending machines with dietitian-approved options, a fresh farm produce stand and a pharmacy adherence program to help with medications for chronic conditions.

The wellness program also seeks to help employees take advantage of resources it already promotes to the public, such as the EatRight nutrition program and chronic condition clinics’ offerings.

Whitt’s advice to companies considering wellness programs is to start with the data that comes from the medical plan and look for ways to help employees improve the chronic conditions and diseases that are costing the most health care dollars. “For large employers who are self insured … we’re responsible for our people at the end of the year.”

Tara Hulen is a freelance writer for Business Alabama. She lives in Birmingham.