Problems with Wellness Programs

February 10th, 2012Wellness, Work Place Health0 comments

Wellness programs have seemed to have become the latest answer to rising healthcare costs in the workplace. They increase employees’ wellness and they reduce the cost of the overall healthcare costs employers must pay to keep their employees healthy. But some have begun to criticize wellness programs for their inefficiency and lack of ability to do what they’re intended to do. Some say they are money pits if not done correctly.

Here are some of the problems you can see in employers doing healthcare wellness programs:

• Not being patient enough. Employers need to realize that, to receive a return on their investment, they often need to wait for years. In the beginning years, the expectation should be increased client participation, with only about fifty percent of people participating after two years. An actual return on your investment won’t be seen until years three or four.
• Not paying attention to the data. Ask the employees what they are most interested in before making that distinction yourself. Employees have different health risks and interests, and you should be targeting exactly those areas to have the best benefit for your program.
• Forgetting to set up goals. You need to know the direction you want your program to go. You can’t just set up activities, expect participation unchecked, and not know what to expect out of the activity.
• Focusing on only those who are unhealthy. You should target everyone for wellness—from low risk patients to high risk patients. Patients who are currently low risk can slip back and become high risk before you know it.
• Not having enough choices. People are interested in different things so offer several types of activities and programs. Think about things like stress management, exercise and screening programs, for example.
• Incentives, incentives, incentives. Employees need a reason to join your wellness programs and the reason may need to be some kind of incentive. There can be an incentive to join or an incentive to be successful in a wellness program.
• Being too cheap. You have to put money into a good wellness program in order to see some return. Don’t go cheap on things like building a workplace gym or doing a screening program or you won’t get what you’re looking for.
• Not getting leadership support. Those who make the top decisions and pay the bill need to be on board with wellness or you will see resistance. Your programs will always be at risk of getting cut.
• Forgetting to keep track of your results. You need to know you’re being successful and exactly what’s being successful in order to plan your way.

This post has been viewed 433 times.