Wellness

This article is the latest installment in EBN's BeneFIT Success series, which chronicles employers' and employees' wellness triumphs. The entire series is available at ebn.benefitnews.com, keywords "benefit success series."

Colorado is America's healthiest state, right? Wrong, says Andrew Sykes, chairman of Health at Work Wellness Actuaries. It's a myth and was one of the biggest challenges Sykes had to overcome when he was hired by Brighton School District - a school district northeast of Denver - to help implement a wellness program at Brighton's 18 schools and other worksites.

Imagine, in the 21st century - with all of the medical, scientific and technological advances and accomplishments our country has seen - a generation of children that is at risk of not outliving their parents. Not because of a national plague or famine. Quite the contrary, the current generation is at risk of dying prematurely because so many of them are overweight or obese.

Recently, Ambrose held its first employee health and wellness fair. We're a bit different from most organizations in that we are a PEO, a professional employer organization, meaning that companies - mostly smaller ones - contract with us to outsource their HR and payroll functions, including benefits. We wanted to host a health and wellness fair for our clients' employees, but didn't want to charge them for it. So we faced the challenge of conducting a health and wellness fair at minimal-to-no cost.

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.