Health Care Survey Reveals Interesting Stats
Monday, September 6th, 2010Hewitt and the National Business Group on Health’s survey reveals five crucial insights into how employees and their dependents view health care. These insights are essential for businesses to understand as they evaluate their existing and upcoming health care strategies. Help for prescription medicines is high on the list.
In spite of the fact that employees say they know how to get in good physical shape, many are not taking action to do so. Most (84%) believe making intelligent decisions in daily life leads to excellent overall health, and nearly three-quarters (72%) feel good health is a result of getting regular preventive care. Only half of the employees think they do a great or good job of eating healthy, while less than half (46%) reported doing a great or good job of exercising on a regular basis. To help with the high prices of medicines, most employees surveyed ranked prescription program assistance extremely high.
Involvement in health programs is low, but satisfaction is high. Involvement in a lot of employer provided health programs is not as high as many businesses would like to see, even though workers and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. The most popular programs include biometric screenings (61%), followed by online health information tools (53%) and health risk questionnaires (41%). Stress management programs and employee assistance programs (EAPs) were the least popular, with just nine percent participation in each. For employees that had dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.
Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non financial, internal motivators can be just as effective. Frequently, employers assume that providing monetary incentives for participating in programs will increase participation. Nearly half would complete a health-risk questionnaire (HRQ) without any incentive because it is “the right thing to do”. Twenty-nine percent would participate in a HRQ for an incentive and almost the same number would complete it if there was a penalty. Further, 44% of workers would participate in a wellness or health improvement program offered by their employer because it’s the right thing to do.
