Wellness

Open enrollment is often one of the busiest times of the year for most benefit professionals. After finishing all of the plan updates, budgets and the communication strategy, we have the open enrollment meetings. With any luck, you won't find yourself in a crowded room of people at the height of flu season. For those of you not lucky enough to escape air travel, late nights and multiple meetings, here are some tips for staying healthy during open enrollment time.

Last week, Meritain Health, a provider of self-funded health and wellness plans, found that 89% of participants had improved blood pressure and 77% had reduced LDL cholesterol.

More than half of the average company’s employees do not engage in wellness programs because they don’t think the programs are relevant to them. Thus, changing their minds also requires a change in how the programs are rolled out.

Full-time U.S. workers who have chronic health troubles or are overweight cost more than $153 billion in lost productivity each year from absenteeism, according to a Gallup-Healthways study released on Monday.

What good are company wellness programs if employees don't know about them and the services offered? Just like other employee benefits, wellness programs can be under-appreciated and under-used if they're not properly communicated.

The meaning of success is different for each of us. Whether we are talking about business or personal achievement, we define success by what matters most to us. Is it any wonder that your clients have different ideas about what spells success for a corporate wellness program?

In his 20s, Randy Hall, a service engineer with Welch Allyn, a leading manufacturer of frontline medical diagnostic equipment, was a track athlete and looked it. "I was skinny during my teens and 20s - I had a 29-inch waist, was about 140 pounds and I'm six feet tall," he recalls.

When Peter Mongeau, vice president of human resources at financial services company John Hancock, was offered the opportunity to have his employees participate in a pilot wellness program focused on nutrition, he jumped at the chance.

We all say we want to live a healthy life. So why is it so hard to do what we say? It's the central question that every wellness program tries to address.

All those reams of paper in your office — documents to enroll new hires in benefit plans, disenroll ineligible dependents and the like — are costing your company money. A lot of money.

The Kansas City Collaborative (KC2), a three-year long value based benefit project, succeeded in helping the 15 participating employers share best practices for overcoming health care challenges. Nine of these companies reported that they have saved almost $11 million in direct health care costs by implementing a value-based benefits initiative.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prescription drug spending is expected to rise to $457.8 billion in 2019 from its current amount of $274.5 billion. With sobering numbers like these, it's no surprise why benefit plan sponsors and participants are continually seeking ways to cut medication costs.

Nationwide Better Health, part of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, closed its doors Sept. 1 after five years in the wellness and productivity business. The company announced on May 25 that Nationwide would sell its productivity services to Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc. and wind down disease management and wellness programs.

Prior to joining ValuMarket - a family-owned chain of grocery stores in Louisville, Ky. - Amy Bisig had no experience in wellness programming. She clearly made a great impression on CEO Greg Newman, who hired her anyway to be the company's corporate wellness director.

This story is part of EBN's year-long BeneFIT Success series, which chronicles employers' and employees' wellness triumphs. Find the entire series online at ebn.benefitnews.com, keywords "benefit success series," and view the accompanying slideshow - featuring several of our profile subjects at various points in their wellness journeys - at ebn.benefitnews.com/slideshow. Learn how to submit your company's wellness story at the end of this article.

Hospital employees spend 10% more on health care, consume more medical services, and are generally sicker than the rest of the U.S. workforce, according to a study released on Monday.

Accounting firm CCR is walking its way to wellness. Staff from the Boston and Glastonbury, Conn., offices will compete in the firm's new Wellness Trek to San Francisco.

Cardiovascular disease accounts for roughly $286 billion in health expenditures - including the direct costs of medical care and indirect costs associated with lost productivity - according to the latest numbers from the American Heart Association. Spending on cardiovascular medications accounted for 20% of drug plan costs, according to Medco's 2011 Drug Trend Report.

[IMGCAP(1)] HONG KONG | Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:56am EDT (Reuters) - Obesity is most widespread in Britain and the United States among the world's leading economies and if present trends continue, about half of both men and women in the United States will be obese by 2030, health experts warned on Friday. …

With the prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States nearly tripling over the past 30 years, now is the time for employers to take the lead in the battle against the growing problem of overweight and obese children, according to the National Business Group on Health. Obesity is a growing epidemic affecting children, their families and the nation. The United States currently has the highest percentage of overweight youth in its history. More than one-third…