Are Wellness Programs Cost-Effective?

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that robust wellness programs, or Wellness Programs, can lower health care and insurance costs, decrease rates of absenteeism, and improve performance and productivity.

Other benefits demonstrated in studies include improved ability to attract and retain key personnel, greater employee allegiance, and improved public image of the company.

Healthcare and Insurance Costs

A number of studies provide evidence of lower medical and insurance costs for participants in wellness programs, particularly wellness programs involving exercise.

For $30 per person, the Bank of America conducted a wellness program for retirees using a risk assessment questionnaire, self-care books and other mailed materials. Insurance claims were decreased an average of $164 per year in this group while they increased $15 for the control group.

Since they were able to document significant changes in risk behavior, they anticipate greater savings in future years.

Pacific Bell’s FitWorks participants claim $300 less per case for a one-year savings of $700,000. Savings for conditions related to a sedentary lifestyle are $722 per case.

Coca Cola reported a reduction in health care claims with a workout planalone, saving $500 per worker per year for the employees (60%) who joined their HealthWorks fitness program.

Prudential Insurance Company reports that the corporation’s major healthcare costs dropped from $574 to $312 for each participant in its wellness program.

Lowered Absenteeism

Absenteeism has been proven to be impacted by corporate wellness and wellness programs. the evidence indicates a meaningful reduction in absenteeism and resultant dollars saved so of employee fitness plans.

Pacific Bell’s FitWorks program reduced absent days .8% to save $2 million in one year. FitWorks members also spent 3.3 days less on short-term disability for an additional savings of $4.7 million.

Focusing wellness efforts on high-risk employees can lead to better results. A national manufacturing corporation reports a decrease of 12.2% in disease days for these employees.

A two-year study by the DuPont Business of the effect of its extensive wellness program on absences among workers reports that blue-collar workers at intervention sites had a 14 percent decline in disability days vs. 5.8 percent decline for controls. There were a total of 11,726 fewer net disability days.

Enhanced Performance, Productivity and Morale

A number of businesss with wellness programs report documented betterment in job attitude, work performance, energy level, and/or overall morale among program participants–all vital factors in enhancing productivity.

A Johnson and Johnson study found that employee attitude changes were greater at wellness intervention sites with meaningful positive attitude changes noted in the categories of organizational commitment, supervision, working conditions, job competence/security, and pay/benefits.

In a Canadian government study, the Canada Life Assurance Company experimental group realized a 4% increase in productivity after starting an staff member fitness program, compared to the control group.

Further, 47 percent of program participants stated that they felt more alert, had better rapport with their colleagues, and ordinarily enjoyed their work more.

Swedish investigators found that mental performance was significantly better in physically fit staff members than in non-fit staff members. Fit staff members committed 27 percent fewer errors on tasks involving concentration and short-term memory, as compared with the performance of non-fit staff members.

The Bottom Line

The following sample of corporate wellness wellness program results have been announced by individual corporations -

Company -  Dollars Saved/Dollars Spent

• Bank of America (Fries) -  $5.96/$1

• PacBell -  $3.10/$1

• Wisconsin School District Insurance Group -  $4.47/$1

• Prudential Insurance -  $2.90/$1

• Bank of America (Leigh) -  $4.73/$1

• General Mills -  $3.50/$1

Summary

There is compelling evidence that a sizable portion of the billions of dollars currently spent by businesss on health-related costs is preventable by means of wellness programming.

Well-planned, comprehensive wellness programs (wellness programs and staff member wellness programs) have been proven to be cost-effective, in particular when the wellness programming is matched to the medical problems of the specific staff member