Companies are offering more preventive health-care
services to save money on sick and absent employees, but
would be wise to offer workers more services to change
their lifestyles.
That's the conclusion of a new report in the American
Journal of Health Promotion.
Although health benefits frequently include physical
exams, immunizations, cancer and cholesterol screenings,
changing behaviors save even more money over time, said
Dr. Jeffrey Harris at the University of Washington School
of Public Health, who was lead author of the survey.
Yet the researchers found only 20 percent of employers
include services that help workers live healthier by quitting
smoking, eating better, getting more exercise and tackling
alcohol abuse. Few even offered flu shots, the report
found.
Health maintenance organizations were more likely to
offer preventive services than point-of-service (POS)
and preferred provider organizations (PPOs), the report
said.
The researchers also found that companies with more than
500 workers are more likely to offer preventative services,
perhaps because they can negotiate better rates with insurance
companies.
Only about a third of employers offer workers incentives
for the services they do provide. Larger employers were
more likely to offer lower insurance rates for those who
took preventive measures, while mid- and small-size companies
offered time off for employees to use the services, according
to the study.
Smaller companies have been slow to catch on, in part
because of the immediate costs, and because management
remains skeptical about changing workers' bad habits of
a lifetime, said Marguerite Burns, a researcher at the
Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University
of Wisconsin Medical School. A recent study there showed
a low rate of coverage for quit-smoking programs among
state government employers.
