Archive for category ROI
Zeroing in on Weight Loss May Be a Bad Idea — The ShapeUp Survey, Pt 3
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Reporting, ROI, ShapeUp, Uncategorized on March 8, 2012
In one of ShapeUp’s initial posts following the release of the results of its Annual Survey Large Employer Wellness Survey, they emphasized that obesity is a key driver of employer health care costs, and the survey results found that employers view addressing obesity as an important goal.
ShapeUp concluded:
Anyone serious about controlling behavior-driven health care costs in America would be wise to zero in on weight loss interventions aimed at large, self-insured companies.
Anyone?
In fact, employers who invest in weight management are likely to be doing so to excess. Read the rest of this entry »
Recap: Achieving an ROI for Wellness & Sustainable Behavior Change
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Reporting, ROI on July 29, 2010
I don’t want to overkill the topic of wellness return-on-investment, the topic of my last two posts. But, while it’s still fresh, I thought I’d offer a quick recap of the conference, Achieving an ROI for Wellness & Sustainable Behavior Change, hosted in Washington, DC on July 27 and 28. I’m not going to give you a play-by-play, just mention a few highlights and my perception of general trends.
The conference was opened by a thought-provoking presentation by Ian Ayres. Ayres is a well-known lawyer and economist, and co-founder of the the website StickK (a conference sponsor). StickK, immortalized in the popular behavioral economics manifesto Nudge, is a web-based embodiment of behavioral economics. Users create “Commitment Contracts” to stay Read the rest of this entry »
Employee Wellness Programs: Beyond ROI
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, ROI on July 21, 2010
When was the last time someone asked an insurer or an employer what their return-on-investment is for covering Viagra? Or back surgery? Prostatectomy? Probably never.
Yet we’re repeatedly asked to prove the ROI of wellness — partly because the role of wellness is misunderstood, and partly because we’ve oversold the ROI of wellness, as I outlined in Part I of this blog.
Wellness is part of the continuum of care, as much or more a part of health as those expensive medical procedures for which companies so readily pony up big bucks. It’s an irrational double-standard to demand that wellness delivers a positive ROI when the same standard is not upheld for much more costly health expenditures. Some may make the argument that CFOs will always demand ROI because their interests ultimately lie in the bottom line. It is a cynical and presumptuous argument. Read the rest of this entry »
Employee Wellness ROI: Fact or Fiction?
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, ROI on July 18, 2010
It’s logical: Keep people healthier with wellness programs and they’ll need less health care. Ultimately, employers with wellness programs will save more on health care than they spend on health promotion, leading to the holy grail of return-on-investment. Indeed, we commonly hear about ROI’s ranging from 3:1 to as much as 12:1 (12:1 meaning that, for every dollar you spend on health promotion, you’ll save 12 bucks in health care costs).
Most of us working in the employee wellness industry will argue, “If you prevent one heart attack, you’re going to save a million dollars. How can you go wrong?”
But if it’s so easy, why has it been so difficult to prove? Read the rest of this entry »
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Wellness Budgets: ShapeUp Spotlights the One Percent
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, ROI, ShapeUp, Uncategorized on March 25, 2012
I nitpicked with ShapeUp for the way they used the term “per employee per year.” It’s only fair that I give them props for introducing a lot of people to one of the best ways to express total employee wellness budget: as a percentage of total health care expense.
In their survey results, ShapeUp reported, “Wellness budgets are typically 1-3% of total health care spend.” Elsewhere Read the rest of this entry »
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