Fostering a culture of well-being and demonstrating the benefits to your organization

A growing number of small and mid-size organizations want to support employee well-being. However, they face multiple challenges. These include finding affordable, streamlined ways to introduce well-being initiatives and measuring the impacts of these efforts to justify their organization’s continued investment.

The Town of Apex—a small North Carolina municipality near the state’s capital—is an example of an organization that faced these challenges. They leveraged data to successfully design and deliver a wellness program. They were then able to demonstrate the positive impacts of their efforts on their population’s total health and well-being—as well as on their organization’s bottom line.

Strategy

Fostering a culture of health requires that an organization assess needs and opportunities across the multiple dimensions of well-being (physical, social, mental, and financial). They must then deploy appropriate strategies and resources to support employees and their families. Like many organizations tasked with offering affordable, competitive benefits, the Town chose to implement a wellness incentive program.

The Town built the program by tapping into local and carrier resources that address their top employee health and well-being areas of concern. The program encourages employees to utilize recommended preventive care services and complete a health assessment. This helps employees better understand their health risks and how to manage them. Employees who complete these activities earn a medical premium differential.

A network of Wellness Champions supports the program and effectively engages most of the Town’s employees. Additionally, the program has participants across the spectrum of health—not just the “worried well,” or those who are healthy and frequently visit the doctor. Though the Town has many other strategies and programs to support total well-being, they wanted to measure the impact of this strategy.

The Town partnered with Marsh McLennan Agency to conduct this analysis. Our clinical consulting and data analytics team leveraged their analytics platform that houses the Town’s medical and pharmacy claims data. We conducted a cohort analysis comparing employees who participated in the program against employees who did not. We also conducted a year-over-year analysis of employees who participated two years in a row. 

Results

An evaluation of the program showed that participants with much higher utilization of preventive care and telehealth services have a much lower rate of ER visits and hospital admissions. They also have lower overall health risks and medical costs despite having a higher rate of chronic conditions.

Though participants had a higher incidence of chronic conditions than, and similar claims utilization to, non-participants, they exhibited:

• 43% lower medical spend per member per month
• Higher preventive care compliance rates for annual physicals, mammograms, and pap tests

Participant vs. Non-Participant: Utilization and Cost