The Zero-Cost Wellness Program

One of the most vexing problems for wellness managers is often a lack of support from senior management, particularly financial support.

Protection of human resource capital has everything to do with long-term profitability. But how do you get past the financial barrier of funding wellness programs, if your leadership doesn't see the value?

How about a zero-cost wellness program? Most CFOs will agree that running a wellness program is a good idea. But they often have reservations about the cost of funding wellness initiatives, because they are unsure of the returns on the investment. With the right approach, it's possible to save enough money through wellness initiatives to create a zero-cost wellness program.

Here's an example of how this would look for a company with 100 employees:

• $10,000 average health plan cost/employee
• Employer pays 70% of health plan premiums($7,000)
• 30% employee contribution to health plan ($3,000)
• Wellness program investment: $200/employee. In the first year of a wellness program, this employer makes a 2% investment in wellness.

If you achieve a modest 75 percent participation rate in year one, and at least half of the participants are in good health, you'll start to see a return on your investment, especially if you require non-participants to pay a higher share of the costs. If you increase participation rates to 80 percent in year two, and at least half of all participants are in good health, the cost per employee to operate your wellness program will continue to go down.

You'll also begin to see other benefits accrue, such as increased productivity, decreased presenteeism, decreased health risks, reduced on-the-job injuries, lower health claims, and much better morale. These benefits that accrue from the wellness program can be documented by the WellSuite III personal and aggregate management reports.

A zero-cost wellness strategy can actually show a profit. It's based on a high-deductible strategy:

• Move the employee deductible up to $5,000.
• The savings is generally about $100-200/month or $1,200-2,400/employee per year.
• Insure the $5,000 deductible for about $65/month for each employee.
• The savings can easily fund the wellness program, with a nice margin left over, which comes from the savings in premiums.

Look for insurance companies that will insure the higher deductible (these are often called "gap" plans). Talk to your insurance broker, and make the arrangements. This approach to funding wellness, in combination with an affordable health risk assessment and supporting wellness tools, can be very successful financially. Wellness can be properly funded to help employers prosper directly and indirectly from their wellness programs.