Wellness Programs : What Health Providers Are Not Telling You.
The companies with the most cost-efficient heath programs are the ones that streamline the services staff members receive for both their physical and mental health.
As a long-term goal, having your general health plan, staff member assistance program (EAP) and health promotion program communicating regularly with one another about employees’ treatments is the single best way to reduce redundant or contradictory treatments, eliminate unnecessary claims and improve the quality of the plans for which you pay.
Let’s look at the relationship between your wellness program and your employee assistance program to illustrate the importance of attacking medical costs cross a wide front.
You can begin a wellness program with a health risk assessment and then, when appropriate, roll out a use of tobacco cessation program or a weight loss program.
But ultimately you want to make certain that your wellness vendor works in conjunction with your employee assistance program (EAP) vendor.
Here’s why – It’s very common for an worker to contact the employee assistance program (EAP) because the individuals feels depressed about his or her weight. What you want is for the employee assistance program (EAP) vendor to treat the employee’s depression and behavioral issues, plus you want the employee assistance program (EAP) to refer the worker to the wellness program to deal with the root cause of the problem – obesity.
The same thing escorts the relationship your health promotion program and your workers’ comp vendor, STD and LTD vendors, rehab people , and/or illness managers. You want all them talking to – and sharing data with – each other. When they’re not, it’s costing you money.
In general, the corporations who achieve the greatest cost savings through their wellness programs are the ones who overlap wellness with behavioral and occupational health issues.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I find the most difficult element in making a wellness program cost-efficient is matching up employee needs with EAPs. Often times I find employees’ different needs pull the EAPs in too many different directions.