Employee Wellness Programs: employee Health Services and employee Benefits
Small and large organizations carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by offering healthcare insurance for their employees. With the escalating increase in healthcare cost many organizations are attempting to slow the increase of healthcare insurance premiums by offering creative cost control programs. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep employees healthy and secondary prevention to identify and treat health conditions before they can become serious.
At some workplaces, employees 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 Employer Health and Wellness Program specialists. These two sets of experts may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Employee Wellness Programs.
In conjunction with the above programs the majority of large organizations also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense worksite medical and preventive care. Some programs 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 company clinical personnel or through outside contractors:
Serum cholesterol
Colorectal cancer screen
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 programs
• Onsite Child and adult care services
• Financial and Pre-Retirement planning
• Continued learning/educational opportunities
• Coordination of company picnics and outings
• Parent-child work visitation programs
• Workers compensation/rehabilitation
