Working well

It's as simple as the old axiom "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."

Harrisburg-based D&H Distributing Co. recently bought an apple for all of its roughly 950 employees as part of the company's wellness program.

D&H is one of a growing number of companies signing on to wellness programs for their positive impact - on employee waistlines and the company's bottom line. 

Wellness programs aim to instill healthier habits and connect employees with preventative care such as blood-glucose screenings and flu shots - all of which translate to a return on investment for employers in the form of lower health care costs.

And although it's difficult to measure, companies find the programs result in increased productivity from happier, healthier workers.

"An overall awareness of healthier living is a benefit to us," said Jeff Davis, D&H's senior vice president for sales. "In the long run, (having) healthier employees helps us around our insurance and elongates their well-being and their lives." 

Last year, 68 percent of the 590 human-resources professionals who responded to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management said their company offered a wellness program. That amount has increased 11 percent since 2003.

Insurer Highmark Inc. has seen significant increases in the use of its wellness program during the past five years and estimates one-third of its customers are enrolled in the program, said company spokesman Leilyn Perri.

The skyrocketing cost of health insurance is the primary factor driving that expansion, said Mike Fiaschetti, Highmark's senior vice president for the Mid-Atlantic region. 

The rising price of health-insurance premiums was one of the motivating factors behind D&H's program as well, Davis said. "Like any large company, we saw the trends in health care, the double-digit increases (in costs)," he said.

The company has seen premiums increase 8 to 10 percent each year over the past few years and expects a similar hike for 2009, Davis said.

Employer health-insurance premiums shot up 6.1 percent in 2007 - twice the rate of inflation - according to the nonprofit, non-partisan National Coalition on Health Care.

Health insurance is employers' fastest-growing cost component, the coalition states on its Web site.

Wellness programs can help reduce those expenses through their emphasis on preventative care and keeping risk factors such as obesity under control.

A four-year study commissioned by Highmark found that, without factoring in worker productivity, the company's wellness program produced a $1.65 return for every $1 invested in the wellness program.

The highest return on investment came from a reduction in inpatient costs.

The peer-reviewed study was published in February in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Fiaschetti estimated that adding in productivity would increase that margin to $2 or $3 per $1 invested. The company is trying to precisely quantify the wellness program's impact in this area.

A wellness program won't cut a company's health care costs 10 percent, Fiaschetti said, but it will bring them more in line with inflation.

Although he couldn't cite an exact number, Davis said the wellness program has helped trim what would have been even greater premium increases since D&H began the measure.

Lancaster General Hospital's wellness program also produces an estimated $1 to $3 return on every $1 investment for individuals enrolled in the program for three years, said Alice Yoder, the hospital's director of community health.

Lancaster General's wellness program received the gold Well Workplace award this year from the Wellness Council of America, a Nebraska-based national nonprofit.

Highmark and Lancaster General's wellness programs feature a health-risk assessment for employees to take, while D&H's and the hospital's programs include free, on-site health screenings.

All three have smoking-cessation, healthy-eating and stress-reduction programs as options.

Lancaster General rolled out a new facet of its program this month: All food in the hospital's cafeteria will be labeled with a green, yellow or red flag, roughly corresponding to the item's healthiness. For instance, green is the best and red is the worst.

Staff will compare purchases before the flags to those afterward, Yoder said.

Workplaces can take small steps to increase employee wellness, Yoder said, such as ensuring that a variety of healthy snack options are available and making the workplace smoke-free.

Some of these small changes can occur at no cost  - such as employees at D&H who have organized lunchtime walks, Davis said.

And aside from the financial and health benefits, he said there are more intangible reasons for a company to begin a wellness program.

"It's the right thing for companies to do, to make health care convenient and accessible and for the company to take a leadership role in driving wellness activities," Davis said.

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Health help

These are some elements of workplace wellness programs:

• Flu shots
• Smoking-cessation programs
• Dietary counseling
• Risk assessments
• Walking groups
• On-site screenings for indicators such blood pressure or blood glucose
• Smoke-free workplace
• Discounts on gym memberships or on-site gyms
• Stress-management programs