Wellness programs are initiatives that are designed to help people improve upon their overall wellbeing, including both physical and mental health. Wellness programs have become increasingly popular components of businesses for multiple reasons, one being that they can help reduce the cost of healthcare. You may be wondering how this works. Read on to find out!
Companies & Health Benefits
Oftentimes, companies offer their employees health benefits. If you don’t know what these are, don’t worry; I’ll explain. According to healthcare.gov, health benefits are defined as the “items or services covered under a health insurance plan”. This can include mental health services, such as therapy, prescription drug coverage, pregnancy and childbirth, doctor’s visits, and more. Different health insurance plans cover the costs of different expenses, but the point is that many companies provide their employees with health benefits, generally to provide people with an incentive to both join and stay at the corporation.
As you can probably imagine, healthcare expenses can get very expensive for businesses, and here’s an example of how. According to the CDC, “1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year”. If you own a business with 100 employees, that means that 20 of your employees will experience a mental illness each year. If you’re an employer that provides their employees with health benefits, this means that if your 20 employees who are experiencing mental illnesses need therapy or prescription medication, your company is the one who’s going to be paying for it. And of course you want your employees to overcome their mental illnesses! However, you also recognize the fact that your company is going to be paying for those expenses, which is a bit daunting, especially with how expensive the United States’ healthcare system is.
Companies & Wellness Programs
When companies implement wellness programs, their employees often become healthier individuals. If an organization puts a gym in their workplace, that in itself creates an opportunity for employees to exercise. If a corporation holds a seminar on the importance of eating healthy, that educates people on why they should incorporate nutritious foods into their diet. Exposing employees to wellness, at the very least, incentives them to make healthier decisions. When an incentive turns into action, and when employees actually make healthier decisions, there’s an opportunity for companies to reduce their healthcare costs. And this is because a healthier workforce will naturally have less of a need to see doctors, be prescribed medication, and so on.
Furthermore, if a workforce continuously doesn’t utilize much of their health benefits, the company’s health insurance premiums may decrease as a result of the insurance company recognizing that the business’ employees are healthy.
Conclusion
In conclusion, healthy employees can reduce the cost of healthcare for businesses, and wellness programs can be stepping stones to help employees get healthy.
I hope this blog was educational in helping you understand this correlation, and I hope it motivates you to promote a healthier workforce, not just for reduced healthcare costs, but for the wellbeing of your employees.
BetterYou
If you’re looking to implement a wellness program at your company, I would strongly recommend checking out BetterYou! BetterYou is an app that aims to help people live happier and healthier lives, primarily through goal-setting features and prompts to hit those goals.
If you’re interested in learning more, please don’t hesitate to contact us here. We look forward to connecting with you and sharing more about how BetterYou can help you create a healthier workforce.
