August 17, 2010
Health Care Survey Reveals Interesting Stats
Hewitt and the National Business Group on Health's survey reveals five strategic insights into how workers and their dependents view health care. These insights are crucial for employers to know as they assess their current and future health care strategies. Help for prescription drugs is high on the list.
Many employees are not doing what they need to do to get healthy even though they know better. Most (84%) think making wise choices in daily life leads to excellent overall health, and just about three-quarters (72%) believe good health is a consequence of getting regular preventive care. Only half of the employees 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 expensive prices of medicines, most workers surveyed rated prescription program assistance very high.
Although satisfaction is by and large high in health programs, involvement is low. Involvement in many employer provided health programs isn't as high as many employers would like to see, even though workers and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. The most accepted programs include biometric screenings (61%), followed by online health information tools (53%) and health risk questionnaires (41%). Stress management programs and employee assistance programs (EAPs) were the least popular, with just nine percent participation in each. For employees that have dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.
Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non monetary, internal motivators can be just as valuable. Frequently, businesses assume that providing financial incentives for participating in programs will increase participation. Citing that it is "the right thing to do", close to half of all workers surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire About 30% of the individuals would complete a survey if there was a penalty for not doing so and an additional 30% would do it if there was a financial incentive involved. In addition, 44% of the workers surveyed said they would be willing to participate in a wellness program provided by their employer because "it is the right thing to do".
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