Health promotion and the bottom line.

Health Promotion and the Bottom Line

An increasing number of employers are buying into health promotion activities for their employees. With 50 percent of health care costs avoidable, according to David R. Anderson, PhD, Vice President of Operations, Staywell Health Management Systems, Inc., "unhealthy habits lead to higher health care costs." Anderson spoke at "Health Promotion--Putting It on the Corporate Agenda," a Business Health Care Symposium sponsored February 7, 1990, by AV-MED Health Plan and the University of Miami Institute for Health Administration and Research.

"The real solution," Anderson stated, "for long-term cost containment is good health. Current cost containment programs only buy time." Cost containment programs now being used by employers include:

* Shop for best price.

HMO "fixed costs"

PPO discounted prices

* Limit utilization.

Precertification/review

Case management

Employers are beginning to build incentives into benefit programs for people with healthy life-styles. Incentives might include, for example, a reduction of the employee's premium if he or she exercises, loses weight, or lowers blood pressure and cholesterol. These incentives would offset the current trend of having employees contribute to group plan health care costs.

A five-year study of 15,000 Control Data Corporation employees showed that workers with the unhealthiest life-style habits had the highest medical bills. The study, conducted jointly by Control Data and Milliman and Robertson, Inc., disclosed that health care costs for obese people were 11 percent higher then those for thin ones. Workers who routinely failed to use seat belts spent 54 percent more days in the hospital than those who buckled up.

Seven life-style risks were examined: exercise, weight, smoking, hypertension, alcohol use, cholesterol, and seat belt use. Other examples of increased utilization and costs include:

* Sedentary employees use 30 percent more hospital days than those who get adequate levels of exercise.

* Seriously overweight employees are 48 percent more likely to have claims exceeding $5,000 during a one-year period than those at normal weight levels.

Dr. Anderson stated that the study Well program at Control Data Corporation reached the break-even point in three years, and at 10 years was projected to save $4 for every dollar invested. This return on investment could affects a company's bottom line.

For those employers questioning the long-term value of an investment in a health promotion program, there is a short-term payoff. A health promotion program creates a more productive workforce, because it attacks poor health and enhances employee morale and commitment.

Ruth H. Stack is President of the National Association of Employers on Health Care Action, Key Biscayne, Fla.