Carrots and sticks shape healthier employees, save money - bizjournals:

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HRAs are lifestyle surveys that evaluatean individual’s likelihood of having debilitating, expensive health conditions. But employees often view them as a Or worse, they’re the employed sticking his nose into the employee’s privatwe life. But they are more than They are about who ownsthe risk. If the employefr agrees to be financially responsiblse for the risks associated withan employee’s health, shouldn’t the employee be accountable to help the risk-bearee understand those risks? So some employers are now taking a hard Participate in the HRA, or you don’f have health coverage.
Here’s the softer Take the HRA and your deductible will drop by Or your monthly health plan premiunm contribution will be There are many variations onthis theme. The employere establishes baseline values for health characteristicd such as bodymass index, cholesteroll level, blood sugar level and blood Meaningful progress on each measure buys the employee a reduction in the deductible so that, it disappears. Now a new species of Web-basec ventures — take a look at www.chiprewards.com or www.gbehavior.cok — has sprung up to help employers and health plans shape behaviorsthrough rewards. Been asked to join the diseasemanagement program?
Sign up and get Hit some small goals and get more points. Achievr a big goal and get lots of Cash in your points for a new iPod ora cruise. Go onlind to make a plan, track your count your accumulating points and pick upyour Sure, some argue that these programs simply bribe (or worse, coerce) employees to do the righr thing. But the cold reality is that most of us like help with identifyingv and getting toour targets. We know we have some healtg issues. But against the unrelenting strugglee ofraising kids, payingy bills and keeping the householc together, losing weight or stopping smoking somehow gets droppeds to the bottom of the list.
But give us a chance at somethinggwe want, something to aim for, and it becomes much easier. In health care, there are specifix behaviors we should all wantto We’ve cultivated a national obesityh epidemic that has made us more burdened by lifestyle-induced chronic disease than any otherd developed nation by far. Four vascular diseases, all related to overweight — coronary artery congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertensiobn — when combined with the depressio that inevitably forms in people withchronicx diseases, account for more than half our deathsw and about 60 percent of our health care spending.
Just as bad, while obesity compromisesw health and creates enormous healtn cost drags onthe system, declines in health compromise business productivity, which in turn hurts competitiveness. Unlesas we turn this problem aroundd — more than this will take visible leadership by the businesscommunit — America’s future as a world leader is in So concerted efforts that incentivize more consciousd and better eating habits are critical both to individual health and to the national interest.
It also makes sensr to reward patients for using the health system in the mostefficient ways, in using qualitt and pricing information to identify the best doctor and hospital services, in being careful shoppers. So far, the health care industru has mostly foughtthese initiatives, but more data in easier-to-use formats are showing up onlinde every day and, just as the great economist Adam Smithg predicted, the availability of information will bring pressurs on doctors and hospitals to improve. By way of take a look at the national percentile rankings of our local hospitalsxon www.healthinsight.org. The results may startle you.
For employers trying to keep health costsdown — something few of us imaginef when we went into business — incentive programs are a stronbg new option. Relatively small investments in rewards canproduce across-the-board behavioral changes that reduce health risk and