A study finds that workplace wellness programs can lower healthcare costs in workers with chronic diseases, but components of the programs that encourage workers to adopt healthier lifestyles may not reduce costs or lead to savings.
The RAND Corp. study shows that efforts to help employees manage chronic illnesses at an American company saved US$3.78 in healthcare costs for every dollar invested in the effort. The findings are based on its examination of an employee wellness program offered by PepsiCo over a seven-year period.
“The PepsiCo program provides a substantial return for the investment made in helping employees manage chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease,” says Dr. Soeren Mattke, the study’s senior author and a senior natural scientist at RAND.
The disease management participants who also joined the lifestyle management program experienced significantly higher savings, which suggests that proper targeting can improve the financial performance of lifestyle management programs.
Researchers found that the disease management program reduced costs among participants by US$136 per member per month, or US$1,632 annually, driven by a 29% drop in hospital admissions.
Among people who participated in both the disease management and lifestyle management programs, the savings were US$160 per month with a 66% drop in hospital admissions.
However, people who participated in the lifestyle management program reported a small reduction in absenteeism, and there was no significant effect on healthcare costs.
“While workplace wellness programs have the potential to reduce health risks and cut healthcare spending, employers and policy-makers should not take for granted that the lifestyle management components of the programs can reduce costs or lead to savings overall,” Mattke adds.
About half of U.S. employers with at least 50 workers and more than 90% of those with more than 50,000 workers offered a wellness program during 2012.
PepsiCo’s Healthy Living wellness program includes numerous components, including health risk assessments, on-site wellness events, lifestyle management, disease management, complex care management and a nurse advice phone line.
The study evaluated the experiences of more than 67,000 workers who were eligible for the disease management or lifestyle management programs.
Results of the study are published in the January edition of the journal Health Affairs.