Small and large companies carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by providing health care insurance for their staff members. With the escalating increase in health care cost many companies are attempting to slow the increase of health care insurance premiums by providing creative cost control programs. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep staff members healthy and secondary prevention to identify and treat health conditions before they can become serious.
At some workplaces, staff members are being encouraged to take greater responsibility for their health related behaviors through risk rated incentive packages. Linking wellness to worker benefits of gain sharing and co-payment cost reductions will provide new opportunities requiring efforts of collaboration between the human resource managers and the Employee Health and Wellness Program specialists. These two sets of consultants may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Employee Health and Wellness Programs.
In conjunction with the above programs most large companies also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense worksite medical and preventive care. Some programs have also found it cost effective to provide their own physical therapy programming to assist injured and infirm workers in regaining optimal functioning. A broad-based selection of health related worker services and benefits would include the following:
• Free or low cost health screenings provided on site by business clinical personnel or through outside contractors:
Serum cholesterol
Colorectal cancer screen
Blood pressure check
Mammography
Vision and hearing testing
Diabetes
• Referral procedures (e.g., Hypertension, Cholesterol, Cancer)
• First Aid and emergency care
• Disease control and prevention programs
• Child and infirm adult care services
• Financial and Pre-Retirement planning
• Ongoing learning/educational opportunities
• Coordination of business picnics and outings
• Parent-child work visitation programs
• Workers compensation/rehabilitation
