Why "Wellness Programs" don’t work
About 2 years back, my employer started promoting a “Wellness Program”. I won’t mention the program or my employer (however, if you’re sleuthy, you could find out). The promotion went a little like this; we’ll do a biometric test on you to see where you are with blood pressure, weight, BMI, cholesterol, and few other metrics. Once you get you results, you’ll start you program by visiting your doctor (if needed depending on any “risk factors” you may have), filling out diaries regarding healthy living, and wearing an electronic pedometer that records your activity. The pedometer docs to a PC and uploads your points into your account to see how you’re doing over time and against everyone in your program.
The promises? You could save up to 30% on your next years heal insurance premium. Sounded good to me. I like saving money! So Tracy and I signed up.
We started working out, walking, and eating better. Docking our devices once a month or so. I never did fill out those diaries, and those “fitness challenges” like eating 5 serving of veggies a day for a week they mentioned for bonus points, never got to me. I tried my best to keep up with the program but life gets in the way and by year’s end, we got our reports back and we didn’t have the 600 some odd points for a couple in the program to get the base 10% discount. But, apparently the program was going so poorly company wide that they dropped the requirement from 600 to 500 - netting us the 10% discount.
The kicker is when we were notified that our health insurance was once again changing; conveniently after the completion of the program. This time from an HMO to PPO. Oh yeah, by the way we’re jacking the premium about 20% or so. So no matter what, I got screwed.
As a result of the program, I was seeing my Dr. about pre-hypertension and have begun medication for that (cha-ching $$$; labs, dr. visits, etc…). We all got sick, as usual. Life gets in the way and we’re paying down medical bill as usual. The same viscous cycle as we’ve always had.
Our HR department even showed employees that participation in this program was close to 30% across the company. Clearly it’s not working.
To make a long story short. We no longer participate in this program. Either way you put it, you get screwed both ways for as much effort you put into it.
Reason I bring this up because I found this great article over at JunkFoodScience.com regarding these wellness programs and how companies are promised reduced healthcare costs by participating. Come to find out (I already knew this), companies are shelling out big bucks for very little gain. If companies are willing to shell out this kind of dough, how about just putting it towards our health care package to begin with? Life happens far to often and as a much as we like to think we can change genetics - we can’t. Health insurance isn’t going to go down any time soon (read: ever). I’m not saying there’s no value in bettering one’s self, loosing weight and getting fit…I think those are things we should all strive for when possible…I’m just saying that these wellness programs are largely well intentioned but offer very little return on investment.
It’s all very frustrating. I’d love to forward this article to my HR department.