Health Care Survey Of Employees Gives Insight To Participation In Employer Provided Programs
Monday, August 16th, 2010How employees view health care is looked out in a new survey performed by the National Business Group and Hewitt. In order to plan their company health care strategies, it is key to be aware of the results of the survey. Help for prescription drugs is high on the list.
Workers may how to get healthy, but many are not taking action. Seventy two percent of the workers surveyed think that receiving regular preventive care will result in good health. An additional 84% think that making smart decisions in their daily life will lead to overall good health. 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 working out on a regular basis. To assist with the high prices of medication, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance very high.
Despite the fact that satisfaction is by and large high in health programs, involvement is low. Workers and dependents say they might know what actions they need to take to get and stay healthy, but involvement in many employer-provided health enhancement programs is not as high as businesses would like. Biometric screenings are the most popular programs with online health information tools and health risk questionnaires following closely. The least popular programs were stress management programs and employee assistance programs. For workers 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. Many businesses presume that offering cash incentives in exchange for participation 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 workers surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire About 30% of the participants would complete a survey if there was a penalty for not doing so and an additional 30% would do it if there was a monetary incentive involved. In addition, 44% of the employees surveyed said they would be willing to take part in a wellness program provided by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.









