Health Care Survey Reveals Interesting Statistics

Insights as to how workers and their dependents view health care is revealed in a new survey released by the National Business Group and carried out by Hewitt. These insights are important for businesses to be aware of as they analyze their current and future health care strategies. Help for prescription medication is high on the list. 

 

Many workers are not doing what they have to do to get healthy even though they know better. Seventy two percent of the workers surveyed think that getting 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 half of the employees think they do a great or good job of eating healthy, while less than half (46%) reported doing a great or good job of working out on a regular basis. To help with the expensive cost of prescription drugs, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance very high. 

 

In spite of high satisfaction in health programs, involvement remains low. Workers and dependents say they might know what actions they need to take to get and stay healthy, but involvement in many employer-provided health enhancement programs is not as high as employers would like. The most accepted programs include biometric screenings (61%), followed by online health information tools (53%) and health risk questionnaires (41%). Stress management programs and employee assistance programs (EAPs) were the least popular, with just nine percent participation in each. For employees that had dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

 

Internal motivators can be just as effective as financial ones. Many businesses presume that offering cash incentives in exchange for participation will generate the best results and incent workers to participate in health care programs. Citing that it is “the right thing to do”, close to half of all workers surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire About 30% of the individuals would complete a survey if there was a penalty for not doing so and an additional 30% would do it if there was a monetary incentive involved. In addition, 44% of the employees surveyed said they would be willing to participate in a wellness program furnished by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.