Corporate Health - Where to Start?

I speak and meet with many companies and clients that are in the process of developing and health and wellness strategy. They often don't know where to start. They often start with health and preventative screenings. Without a strategy, these screenings don't reach the potential benefits.

The health screenings, which typically include Biometrics such as cholesterol and blood pressure screenings, as designed to help identify those at-risk for health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and related conditions. The challenge is always to get those at-risk to participate. In a voluntary screening program, the majority of the participants are the health conscious percentage of the population rather than those at-risk.

In order to get the at-risk employees to participate, the health benefit strategy needs to address incentives to participate. The health care cost trends will be positively impacted by preventative health screenings and education before these at-risk before high utilizers of health care services. Our objective is to prevent the at-risk population from becoming high utilizing. The part of the population that is already in an unhealthy status can be managed. The most impact is achieved by preventing these health conditions before they occur rather than managing them once they are in that status. With proper health screenings, health education and development of a corporate health strategy, genuine savings will eventually materialize within several years of consistent company and management support.