Self-insured companies across America have implemented employee wellness programs to control rising health care costs and address major health issues like obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most of these employers have come to view wellness not just as a way to save money but also as an essential element of a strong and vibrant company culture. But they increasingly do not find value in health risk assessments.
That’s according to ShapeUp, a social network-based employee wellness company, which conducted phone interviews with 25 large employers with 3,000 to 300,000 employees. The survey was conducted to better understand how large employers approach employee wellness programs and learn how to improve the wellness program experience for these employers. The main failure of health risk assessments, according to Dr. Rajiv Kumar, founder and chief medical officer, is that it as a self-assessment tool that doesn’t necessarily have the tools to change behavior.
