The average self-insured employer experiences a 5% to 6% increase in healthcare costs each year.1


I In an attempt


to manage this trend, many employers shift these costs to employees. According to a 2016 Kaiser Family Foundation study, deductibles for employees in employer- sponsored plans increased 50% in the past 5 years, and workers are paying a higher percentage of the premiums— an average of $5,277 annually.2


These increases


are unsustainable for both employees and employers.


ncreasing healthcare costs have driven roughly 80% of employers to offer some form of employee


wellness or well-being programs. Employers are hoping these programs lessen the impact of chronic diseases by improving employee health and reducing healthcare costs.3


But in some cases,


those expectations are dashed when employees undergo initial assessment but fail to effect countermeasures needed to improve health. If typical approaches to employee health


and well-being generally fail to deliver on their promise to lower costs and improve health, what options are available? Many companies offer wellness screening services, and having provided these services to over 4,000 employers each year, we have identified the key components of effective programs that actually improve health and drive cost savings.


Best-practice wellness programs successfully control healthcare costs by:


Clearly


understanding the health issues


Tere are two critical


data elements that drive a cost- management strategy. Te foundational component is biometric screenings. When screening programs provide results that are insightful, meaningful, and connected to care, it enables early identification of disease and enables employers to understand key trends used to drive health-management programs. Te second component is combining claims data with screening data to create predictive models for risk, and then mitigating that risk with proactive health improvement interventions. Tese health analytics can examine de-identified claims data and biometric screening data to help determine whether risk and utilization


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is out of the ordinary, so high-utilization subpopulations can be offered supportive and acceptable alternatives that are less costly.


Increasing employee engagement through convenience and incentives


With wellness screening data as the foundation of a successful strategy, high participation rates are essential to clearly identify employee health needs. Successful screening programs will even reach employees beyond the brick-and-mortar of the actual office and offer a variety of convenient times and locations. Screenings can be completed in a variety of locations, like a local Patient Service Center, a physician’s office, or even within the comfort of a participant’s home. The top wellness programs also


account for employee preferences when designing an incentive by making different incentive types available. This allows participants to select an incentive that is valuable to them. Many programs reward employees who participate in wellness programs with incentives like gift cards, premium differentials, or extra vacation time. These types of incentives are ideal for programs that require a one- time action, like a screening or attending a specific health education event. Research from the Lockton Benefit Group found that incentives need to be at least $100 to get 75% of employees to engage; smaller rewards motivated only 30−50% of employees.4 Highly effective programs, however,


are pushing beyond the one-time event incentive to drive long-term behavioral changes. These companies leverage outcomes-based incentives for pounds or percent weight lost, lowered cholesterol levels, or logging ten-thousand steps each day for a month. The goal of outcomes- based programs is to first engage


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