National Business Group On Health Survey On Health Care Is Revealing In It’s Findings

How employees view health care is looked out in a new survey conducted by the National Business Group and Hewitt. In order to plan their company health care strategies, it is vital to understand the results of the survey. Help for prescription medication 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 daily life leads to excellent overall health, and roughly three-quarters (72%) believe good health is a consequence 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 working out on a regular basis. To help with the high prices of medication, most workers surveyed rated prescription program assistance extremely high.

Participation in health programs is low, but satisfaction is high. Participation in a lot of employer provided health programs isn’t 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 accepted programs include biometric screenings (61%), followed by online health information tools (53%) and health risk questionnaires (41%). The least popular programs were stress management programs and employee assistance programs. For workers that have dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

Internal motivators can be just as effective as financial ones. Frequently, employers assume that providing monetary incentives for participating in programs will increase participation. Citing that it is “the right thing to do”, close to half of all employees surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire 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 employees would participate in a wellness or health improvement program offered by their employer because it is the right thing to do.