The $6 billion wellness industry

Deanna Darr//August 28, 2014//

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Introduction
Panelists

Keeping costs down

Each quarter, Idaho Business Review and the law firm of Holland & Hart bring experts to the table to discuss topical issues of concern.

One such issue is rising medical costs, a concern for businesses. Employers are looking for ways to cut health care costs.

Workers and employers alike recognize that behaviors now affect their health care costs down the road. In response, many employers are turning to wellness programs that are designed to increase employee health measures and reduce medical costs. The American Medical Association estimates that about $6 billion will be spent on corporate wellness programs this year.

Interest in healthy living is now so universal that wellness program and HR managers say a healthy workplace can be used as a recruiting or a retention tool. On Aug. 5, a panel of people with close knowledge of the wellness program landscape gathered to share their experiences and insights.

Moderator

Bret Busacker, Holland and Hart

Panelists

Debby Ball, director of Human Resources at MWI Veterinary Supply

Kevin Bates, CFO of Business Psychology Associates

Terri Landa, St. Luke’s Health Systems health solutions prevention services manager, certified wellness coach and chair of Activate Treasure Valley

Heidi Martin, corporate health services at St. Alphonsus Health System and dietician

Suzie Owen, corporate wellness programs for Pacific-Source Health Plans

Wellness programs make business sense

Terri Landa

Some very savvy employers make it part of their business strategy that health really is part of the overall strategy of being successful. Helping your people, who are really your best commodity, if you look at it that way, is really important. And conveying that message from the top leadership down is really key.

Debby Ball

Any time you’re proposing a program like that to a CFO, you’ve got to give the ROI [return on investment] and just show them where your return on investment is, and maybe not only in your health care costs. Health care costs are going up tremendously and we’ve been very fortunate over the past five years when most companies have been seeing health care costs go up double digits, we’ve gone up on average 3 percent per year. I think that our wellness programs and wellness initiatives have certainly helped us control our health care costs.

Kevin Bates

I’m never going to argue that ROI isn’t important, it’s very important to people like me. But the ROI with most wellness programs that I’ve seen, the industry standards and the benchmarks always have a pretty good payback. Some of the big companies, Chevron, I think, showed an ROI of for every dollar they spend on wellness they get $14 in return. Now, that’s kind of hard for me to believe, but that was done by someone well above my pay grade, so it’s probably accurate. I think in an ROI typically you would see something in the $3-$5 range, is what I’ve seen is more common.