There isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” solution for wellness – so don’t be talked into buying one. Every employer is unique and every population is different.
If you haven’t already, start implementing wellness within your employee benefits plan. Take small steps at first and look for easy “wins” to build momentum and engage employees. If you already have a wellness plan, challenge your assumptions in benefit plan design, administration, financing and program development in order to improve member health status and lower healthcare costs.
Here are a few ideas to consider:
- Begin with an independent health risk identification process to understand which disease states are driving your costs and which are poised to drive them in the future.
- Draft a three-year benefits strategy that includes a Health Risk Management (HRM) and Wellness program that fits your corporate mission and culture. Include employees in program development for a breadth of ideas and to ensure employee buy-in (when your program is launched, these employees can become important wellness ambassadors within your organization).
- Be sure to take advantage of the Standard-based Wellness Plan provisions of HIPAA and reward employees for taking steps to improve their health. Track meaningful health and wellness metrics and enable employees to earn points towards better benefits, lower employee contributions or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) money.
- For the greatest impact, implement a compliance-based healthplan which rewards employees for participating with Disease Management, Case Management and/or Coaching.
- Lastly, brand your wellness program by incorporating an image your employees will relate to, your own corporate color scheme and a clever tag line that represents your values and goals. (The logo above is one we created for our client, Chaney Enterprises, a leading supplier of concrete and construction materials and supplies.) Use your new branded logo on everything wellness-related to engage your employees and their families.
