Workplace Wellness Programs: worker Health Services and worker Benefits

Small and large businesses carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by providing healthcare insurance for their employees. With the escalating increase in healthcare cost many businesses are attempting to slow the increase of healthcare insurance premiums by providing creative cost control initiatives. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep employees healthy and secondary prevention to establish and treat health conditions before they can become serious. 

At some workplaces, employees 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 Workplace Wellness Program specialists. These two sets of experts may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Workplace Wellness Programs. 

In conjunction with the above initiatives the majority of large businesses also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense onsite medical and preventive care. Some initiatives 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 screening

            Blood pressure screening

            Mammography

            Vision and hearing screening

            Diabetes

• Referral procedures (e.g., Hypertension, Cholesterol, Cancer)

• First Aid and emergency care

• Disease control and prevention initiatives

• Child and infirm adult care services

• Financial and Pre-Retirement planning

• Continued learning/educational opportunities

• Coordination of business picnics and outings

• Parent-child work visitation initiatives

• Workers compensation/rehabilitation