Corporate Wellness Programs: employee Health Services and employee Benefits

Small and large companies carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by providing healthcare insurance for their staff members. With the escalating increase in healthcare cost many companies are attempting to slow the increase of healthcare insurance premiums by providing innovative cost control initiatives. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep staff members healthy and secondary prevention to establish and treat health conditions before they can become serious.

At some workplaces, staff members are being encouraged to take greater responsibility for their health related behaviors through risk rated incentive packages. Linking wellness to employee benefits of gain sharing and co-payment cost reductions will provide new opportunities requiring efforts of collaboration between the human resource managers and the Corporate Health Promotion Plan specialists. These two sets of professionals may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Corporate Wellness Programs.

In conjunction with the above initiatives the majority of large companies also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense worksite medical and preventive care. Some initiatives have also found it cost effective to provide their own physical therapy programming to assist injured and infirm workers in regaining optimal functioning. A comprehensive selection of health related employee services and benefits would include the following:

• Free or low cost health screenings provided on site by organization clinical personnel or through outside contractors:
Serum cholesterol
Colorectal cancer screening
Blood pressure check
Mammography
Vision and hearing testing
Diabetes
• Referral and follow-up procedures (e.g., Hypertension, Cholesterol, Cancer)
• First Aid and emergency care
• Disease control and prevention initiatives
• Onsite Child and adult care services
• Pre-retirement and financial planning
• Continued learning/educational opportunities
• Coordination of organization picnics and outings
• Parent-child work visitation initiatives
• Workers compensation/rehabilitation