Creating a Culture of Health and Wellness
I deal mainly with small-to-medium sized employer groups and every time I broach the subject of creating a company culture that promotes the health and wellness of their employees – I usually get the same response. It goes something like this; “Are you kidding? It’s not good enough that I provide a good paying job with a great employee benefits program, now you want me to promote healthy lifestyles for my employees? Forget it!” Coincidentally, my response is always the same. “As long as you [the employer] have a fiduciary responsibility for your companies health plan, meaning, it’s your name on the plan and you’re the one they ultimately look to for payment – then you have an incumbent responsibility to shield your company finance’s against premium increases. Think about it for a moment. If the majority of your employees are living unhealthy lifestyles (i.e. they’re over-weight, they smoke, live sedentary lives) then you’ll be bearing that burden in the form of higher health insurance premiums year after year.
It’s not just higher premiums that become the negative outcome. It’s also the fact that unhealthy employees tend to be more unproductive than their healthy counterpart employees. They have a higher absenteeism rate and they have a tendency to be less productive even when they’re at work. Ignoring a robust health and wellness component to complement your employer-sponsored health plan just doesn’t make good business sense.
Here are some chilling facts:
A recent analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES), which is conducted regularly by the National Center for Health Statistics, warns that middle-aged individuals may be at greater health risk than anyone anticipated. In comparing the results of two large-scale studies of the U.S. population in 1988 to 1994 and in 2001 to 2006, the report shows that the number of people aged 40 to 74 adhering to healthy lifestyle habits has seriously declined.
* The percentage of surveyed adults with a body mass index greater than 30 has increased from 28 percent to 36 percent *
* Physical activity 12 times a month or more has decreased from 53 percent to 43 percent *
* Eating five or more fruits and vegetables a day has decreased from 42 percent to 26 percent *
* Moderate alcohol use has increased from 40 percent to 51 percent *
* Smoking rates have not changed (26.9 percent to 26.1 percent) *
*The Vitality Group ” CREATING A NEXT-GENERATION HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM: Why employers should take the lead, and how to do it
While it’s true that Americans are living longer today (life expectancy for males is 75 years and for females it’s 80 years), it’s also true that more Americans suffer from chronic and debilitating diseases such as diabetes, hyper-tension, acid reflux, heart disease, mostly stemming from too many Americans being obese. In fact, it’s estimated that obesity alone accounts for 147 billion dollars a year in health care related costs. Now, I’m not an economist by any means but I can figure out that if we created a culture of health and wellness in this country that seeks to stem the negative affects of obesity, we wouldn’t need the government to get involved with health care at all.
Business owners, maybe it’s time to make some radical changes in your workplace like, don’t just ban smoking in the building but eliminate the 35 smoke breaks that take place throughout the day. After all, if I came to you with a request to go into the break room to eat something every 30 minutes you would probably suggest that maybe this job’s not for me – and you would have every right to suggest that! Studies have shown that it’s well worth the investment with ROI’s sometimes being $3.27 reduction in medical costs for every dollar spent on health and wellness, as well as, reducing absenteeism costs by $2.73 for every dollar spent. Just some healthy food for thought.
If you would like to learn more about how to cultivate a culture of health and wellness at your company; email me at bknauss@…
Food creates emotion. When we add the word healthcare into the conversation, well, one can guess what emotion will arise. Healthcare food services, whether in continuing care retirement communities (CCRC), assistant living, skilled care, hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, daycare or meals on wheels, have the opportunity to improve current outcomes.
Durban is a major city in South Africa and the Durban Metropolitan Area is the biggest city on the African east coast. The city has about 3.5 million people and 2,292 square kilometers and is a major center of export-related industries, transportation, tourism, finance and administration ifor the country of South Africa. Durban has many good hospitals in both public and private sectors. The modern hospitals are operated by the country’s major private health care companies and offer excellent medical care. This is a description of some of the leading hospitals in Durban.
First introduced in 1996, it created guidelines governing employee benefits, fraud, security of patient information, and electronic transactions involving billing and claims processing. In 1999, it was amended to also address Internet security and electronic signatures. Then in 2001, the Bush Administration approved HIPAA with a 24-month implementation period in phases for full compliance by providers. The categories of regulation and compliance include transaction standards, code sets, health care identifiers, electronic signatures, physical security, and privacy issues.
Medical malpractice refers to any negligence that a physician, health care professional, or hospital demonstrates during the course of providing treatment to a patient, and, in turn, causes either emotional or physical damage. State licensed individuals and entities-physicians, dentists, nurses, therapists, technicians, pharmacists, hospitals, clinics, etc-are accountable for injury they cause.
Companies are now offering high end insurance plans at short term prices that are lower than many companies are providing for their employees. If you work at a company that is not providing you a lot of coverage, you need to make sure that you’re doing well in regards to a lot of medical coverage. Yes, you need to make sure that you’re not lacking in regards to protecting your family. You’re going to see a brighter future if you’re willing to step up to the plate and look at policies rather than just signing whatever thing you find that covers you for the moment.
Insurance is one of the most necessary investments of individuals today. Because the world is faced with economic crisis, health care costs inevitably rise too, thereby forcing families to limit their spending to save for their medical needs. Because of this, it is best to get insurance for yourself and for your dependents. Health insurance is a form of insurance that covers your medical needs. It can be purchased as a group, a firm buying such to cover its employees for example, or individually by consumers. This type of insurance can be purchased from the government through social insurance program or through private insurance companies.