Health Care Survey Reveals Interesting Statistics

How employees view health care is examined in a new survey carried out by the National Business Group and Hewitt. These insights are significant for employers to understand as they analyze their existing and future health care approaches. Help for prescription medicines is high on the list. 

 

A lot of employees are not doing what they have to do to get healthy even though they know better. Most (84%) think making intelligent decisions in daily life leads to excellent overall health, and approximately three-quarters (72%) think good health is a outcome of getting regular preventive care. Only half of the workers think they do a great or good job of eating healthy, while less than half (46%) reported doing a great or good job of exercising on a regular basis. To help with the high prices of prescription drugs, most employees surveyed rated prescription program assistance extremely high. 

 

In spite of high satisfaction in health programs, involvement remains low. Participation in a lot of employer provided health programs is not as high as many businesses would like to see, even though employees and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. Biometric screenings are the most popular programs with online health information tools and health risk questionnaires following closely. Stress management programs and employee assistance programs (EAPs) were the least popular, with just nine percent participation in each. For workers that had dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

 

Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non financial, internal motivators can be just as valuable. Many employers presume that offering cash incentives in exchange for involvement will generate the best results and incent workers to participate in health care programs. Citing that it is “the right thing to do”, close to half of all employees surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire Twenty-nine percent would participate in a HRQ for an incentive and almost the same number would complete it if there was a penalty. Further, 44% of workers would participate in a wellness or health improvement program provided by their employer because it’s the right thing to do.