Wellness programs help companies save on health costs

A study showed that one program reduced medical claims by $225 per employee per year.

By Julie A. Jacob, AMNews staff. March 11, 2002.

Corporate wellness and health prevention programs can save companies money and improve employee health, according to recent studies.

"There's a growing body of data" indicating that corporate wellness programs lower medical costs for employees, said Ron Z. Goetzel, PhD, vice president of consulting and applied research for the Medstat Group, a health care research firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. The numbers come as corporations are looking for ways to reduce rapidly rising health insurance costs.

A Medstat survey, published in the January Journal of Occupational Medicine, concluded that medical claims costs for Johnson & Johnson Inc. employees dropped an average of $225 per year after the company started its program in 1995.

In addition, a literature review of corporate wellness studies published in the May/June 2001 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion concluded that medical costs dropped for employees enrolled for 28 out of 32 corporate wellness programs reviewed, said Goetzel.

The Medstat number comes from a nine-year analysis of hospital admissions, mental health care, outpatient care and emergency department visits for 18,000 Johnson & Johnson employees, said Goetzel. The study compared employee claims costs from 1990 to 1994, before the corporation started its wellness program, with medical claims costs from 1995 to 1999, after it started the program.

About 90% of Johnson & Johnson employees participate in the corporate wellness program, which consists of free health risk assessments and physicals. Employees can then join free weight management, smoking cessation or nutrition classes and can use on-site fitness centers. [...]