Health Care Survey Of Workers Gives Insight To Participation In Employer Provided Programs

Hewitt and the National Business Group on Health’s survey reveals five important insights into how employees and their dependents view health care. These insights are important for employers to recognize as they analyze their current and future health care plans. Help for prescription drugs is high on the list. 

 

Despite the fact that employees say they might know how to get in good physical shape, many aren’t taking action to do so. Seventy two percent of the employees surveyed feel that receiving regular preventive care will result in good health. An additional 84% think that making smart decisions in their daily life will lead to overall good health. Only 46% of the workers surveyed reported doing a “great” or “good job” of regular exercising and only about half of the workers think they do a “great” or good job” of eating healthy. To assist with the expensive prices of medication, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance extremely high. 

 

Despite the fact that satisfaction is by and large high in health programs, participation is low. Participation in a lot of employer provided health programs isn’t as high as many employers would like to see, even though workers and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. Biometric screenings are the most popular programs with online health information tools and health risk questionnaires following closely. The least popular programs were stress management programs and employee assistance programs. For workers that had dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

 

Internal motivators can be just as effective as monetary ones. Frequently, employers assume that providing financial incentives for participating in programs will increase participation. Citing that it is “the right thing to do”, close to half of all workers surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire Twenty-nine percent would participate in a HRQ for an incentive and almost the same number would complete it if there was a penalty. In addition, 44% of the workers surveyed said they would be willing to participate in a wellness program offered by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.