What Health Vendors Are Not Telling You.

The organizations with the most cost-efficient health plans are the ones that streamline the services staff members receive for both their physical and mental health.

As a long-term goal, having your general health plan, staff member assistance program (EAP) and wellness program communicating regularly with one another about employees’ treatments is the single best way to reduce redundant or contradictory treatments, eliminate unnecessary claims and improve the quality of the plans for which you pay.

Let’s look at the relationship between your wellness program and your employee assistance program (EAP) to illustrate the importance of attacking medical costs cross a wide front.

You can begin a wellness program with a health risk (assessment|appraisal} and then, if appropriate, roll out a use of tobacco cessation program or a weight loss program.

But ultimately you want to be certain that your wellness provider works paired with your employee assistance program (EAP) provider.

Here’s why –  It’s very common for an worker to contact the employee assistance program because the person feels depressed about his or her weight. What you want is for the employee assistance program vendor to treat the employee’s depression and behavioral issues, plus you want the employee assistance program to refer the worker to the wellness program to deal with the root cause of the problem – obesity.

The same thing escorts the relationship your wellness program and your workers’ comp provider, STD and LTD providers, rehab individuals , and/or illness managers. You want all them talking to – and sharing data with – each other. When they’re not, it’s costing you money.

In general, the employers who achieve the greatest cost savings through their wellness programs are the ones who overlap wellness with behavioral and occupational health issues.