subject: Improve an employee's health while reducing your healthcare cost - Yes, it's possible! [print this page] Improve an employee's health while reducing your healthcare cost - Yes, it's possible!
While returning from a recent conference on employee compensation, I happened to flip through a Business Week article
titled "Tough love, Lower Health costs." The article talks about a new healthcare pilot project at General Electric.
Healthcare costs comprise a significant portion of an employee's benefit package. Today, when HR is expected to deliver
higher employee satisfaction with a lower wage bill, GE has taken an innovative approach to balancing these objectives by
offering incentives to promote health maintenance.
For example, the diabetes health plan offered to GE employees is not your typical "disease management" plan in which
employees sign up to receive discounts on medication they take but fill the prescriptions themselves. This new plan puts
the onus on the employee. GE offers incentives such as discounts on out-of-pocket expenses for diabetes-specific
treatment to employees when they maintain their regimens. Employees must schedule physician check-ups and submit to
other preventive measures twice a year.
Promotion of health maintenance is a boon for companies. Paying for care for full-blown disease is far more costly than
paying for out-of-pocket expenses that reduce the need for expensive procedures. Love the idea.
As one senior executive with a workplace health services puts it, "improving the health and wellbeing of our employees
makes good business sense. It can make a difference to a company's bottom line and the impact it can have on employee
morale and motivation is amazing".
This blog is written by Anupal Banerjee of WNS Global Services. WNS is a leading global business process outsourcing.
