New Regulations Encourage Use of Carrots and Sticks in Employee Health and Wellness
New regulations have recently taken effect as part of the Affordable Care Act allowing employers providing health care benefits to employees to steer their workforce toward healthier lifestyles and away from disease causing habits. The new rules enforced last week as part of the law by the Obama Administration guide employees through a classic carrot and stick rewards program. Employees who participate in wellness programs, set goals to live a healthier life, and work towards those goals can be rewarded both financially and with non-monetary rewards, while employees who continue to exhibit unhealthy behaviors; or who not working to eliminate preventable conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol can be penalized similarly. Any outcome based program such as smoking cessation or weight loss programs are often required to have a "cycle of failure and renewed effort" to give employees multiple chances to achieve their goals. These new rules reinforce the effectiveness of the carrot and stick reward/disincentive strategy, rewarding good behavior and penalizing bad behavior. It shows that strategy is financially sound for any size business and can in fact help manage the ever-rising cost of providing health care benefits. Finding rewards that fit each occassion and have value for your employees is key to programmatic success. Gift cards are a great way to fix cost while providing a choice for employees. Using gift cards allow an employee to choose a brand that they value and will use. For health and wellness programs providing a variety of health and wellness retailers such as NutriSystem, GNC, and CVS/Pharmacy show employees that their employer is supportive of their concerted effort to live a healthy lifestyle. Equally important is finding the balance in the disincentives handed out to employees who do not participate in health and wellness programs. The sticks cannot be so big that it makes and employee unhappy with the organization, or makes them wholly averse to ever participating. The stick should be big enough to push employees in a healthier direction. A widely used disincentive is a higher monthly premium for employees not enrolled in the program- encouraging employees to take the step without turning them off totally.
Medicaid Incentives for Prevention of Chronic Diseases Program
The Affordable Care Act was signed by President Obama in 2010. Since its implementation, a number of programs have been developed in an effort to strengthen Medicaid and Medicare by lowering costs and improving the quality of care for millions of Americans.
Definitive Workplace Wellness ROI
HR Morning recently reported on a massive study that shows the true return on wellness plan investments. An analysis of 56 published studies on work site health promotion programs by The American Journal of Health Promotion determined the true ROI and impact of corporate wellness programs. “According to the American Journal of Health Promotion’s in-depth analysis, employers with work site health promotion programs see on average:
Celebrate Healthcare HR Week with Healthy Gift Cards
The American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) has designated the week of March 11-17th, 2012 as THE week to recognize HR professionals in hospitals and non-hospital organizations across the US. These professionals deal with difficult issues day in and day out, and they are the backbone of the healthcare workforce. If you are an HR professional in the healthcare industry, lead the way and reward your colleagues with the gift they can use, like
CVS and CVS SelectTM gift cards. It’s the employee gift that goes a long way to help with everyday family healthcare costs.
Learn more about Healthcare HR Week!
Another Great Way to Use Gift Cards for Wellness - Veterans
Veteran’s Day is this Friday, November 11th and we're seeing lots of gift card promotions, offers and sales …but how many of them actually benefit US Veterans? One VA Medical Center held a women’s health program that gave away $20 gift cards to women who received HIV testing in the month of September. This was a great way to support our veterans while promoting routine female healthcare checks and disease control. You may know that GCP has been collecting and sharing the great employer health and wellness uses of gift cards that we are capturing in our series of surveys –
check out our blog: Health and Wellness Employer Gift Card Successes: for more great healthcare gift card uses. Source:
The Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee
