Corporate Wellness Programs: employee Health Services and employee Benefits
Small and large employers carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by providing medical insurance for their staff members. With the escalating increase in medical cost many employers are attempting to slow the increase of medical insurance premiums by providing innovative cost control initiatives. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep staff members healthy and secondary prevention to identify and treat health conditions before they can become serious.
At some workplaces, staff members are being encouraged to take greater responsibility for their health related behaviors through risk rated incentive packages. Linking wellness to employee benefits of gain sharing and co-payment cost reductions will provide new opportunities requiring efforts of collaboration between the human resource managers and the Corporate Wellness Program specialists. These two sets of experts may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Corporate Wellness Programs.
In conjunction with the above initiatives most large employers also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense onsite medical and preventive care. Some initiatives have also found it cost effective to provide their own physical therapy programming to assist injured and infirm workers in regaining optimal functioning. A broad-based selection of health related employee services and benefits would include the following:
• Free or low cost health screenings provided on site by business clinical personnel or through outside contractors:
Serum cholesterol
Colorectal cancer screening
Blood pressure screening
Mammography
Vision and hearing screening
Diabetes
• Referral procedures (e.g., Hypertension, Cholesterol, Cancer)
• First Aid and emergency care
• Disease control and prevention initiatives
• Child and infirm adult care services
• Pre-retirement and financial planning
• Ongoing learning/educational opportunities
• Coordination of business picnics and outings
• Parent-child work visitation initiatives
• Workers compensation/rehabilitation
