iPhone Insurance UK

How employees view health care is examined in a new survey done by the National Business Group and Hewitt. These insights are crucial for employers to understand as they analyze their existing and future health care approaches. Help for prescription medicines is high on the list. 

A lot of employees are not doing what they ought to do to get healthy even though they know better. Most (84%) believe making good decisions in every day life leads to good overall health, and roughly three-quarters (72%) believe good health is a outcome 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 prescription medicine, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance incredibly high. 

Whilst satisfaction is by and large high in health programs, participation is low. Involvement in many employer provided health programs is not as high as many businesses would like to see, even though employees and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. Biometric screenings are the most popular programs with online health information tools and health risk questionnaires following closely. 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.

Internal motivators can be just as effective as financial ones. Many businesses presume that offering cash incentives in exchange for participation will generate the best results and incent employees to participate in health care programs. 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. In addition, 44% of the workers surveyed said they would be willing to take part in a wellness program furnished by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.