Employee Wellness Plan - How Texas Companies Can Lower Medical Insurance Rates, Absenteeism For Free

If a Texas business can encourage their employees to lose weight, stop smoking, and exercise, they will reduce the likelihood of their employees and dependents will contract diabetes, cancer, heart disease and strokes. A Corporate Wellness Plan, sometimes referred to as an Employee Wellness Plan is a very low cost Employee Benefit that offers specific programs that helps employees and their adult spouses improve their overall health.

Adding a corporate wellness plan is smart business for Dallas Fort Worth, Texas companies. According to the Center for Disease Control, 75% of all disease are preventable, and programs that reduce tobacco use and encourage weight loss and exercise can effectively reduce the occurrence of numerous expensive and disabling diseases.

Reducing these diseases reduces the number of health claims and absenteeism by employees and their families. It also helps make employees more effective and productive on the job.

Employee Wellness Plans have been proven to save employers on average about four dollars in reduced healthcare expenses and lost wages for every dollar spent. This is a tremendous return on investment for any business.

But there is even a way to make a Corporate Wellness Plan an even better tool for improving employee and dependent health and reducing costs. This is called a Wellness Driven Health Plan that the author has developed that Texas businesses can implement at no additional cost.

The Wellness Driven Health Plan works by first raising the deductible on the company's group health insurance Texas plan. Employees therefore become responsible for a greater portion of their medical expense, but the cost of group health insurance is reduced for the employer and employees.

Next, the employer implements the employee wellness plan. This plan gives employees and adult dependents simple tools and programs that have been proven to improve their health, such as weight loss plans, tobacco cessation plans, and exercise programs.

Next, the company implements a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) that lets the employer to reimburse employees on a tax free basis for the cost of the programs in the wellness plans. The health reimbursement arrangement also lets the employer "reward" employees who participate in the wellness plan by contributing a flat amount of money towards their eligible medical expenses. The end result of implementing the Wellness Driven Health Plan is that there is no additional expense to the employer, or to those employees and dependents who take steps to improve their health. The savings in group health insurance expenses from raising the deductible covers the cost of the wellness plan and the rewards to employees who participate in the Employee Wellness Plan.

Employees who take responsibility for improving their health will pay less for their health care than those who don't. Employees and adult dependents who choose not to participate in the Corporate Wellness Plan do not receive the wellness incentive reimbursements that are available in the Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA).

Wellness becomes part of the employee culture as employees see how they can earn money for their lifestyle choices and help control their company's group medical insurance Dallas rates. Over a very short period of time, the Texas company's workforce (and their dependents) will become healthier as a result of lifestyle improvements from participating in the Corporate Wellness Plan. Employees who don't participate will pay more for their health care and may elect to leave the company.

There are specific federal HIPAA and ADA guidelines that must be followed in designing and implementing the Wellness Driven Health Plan strategy, in addition to the typical employee benefit regulations. For more information, contact the author.

Mike Chapman is a principal with Group Benefits Advisors of Dallas, Fort Worth Texas, an employee benefits consultant and group health insurance broker that specializes in out of the box solutions for small and mid-sized businesses in North Texas. His firm helps business structure cost-effective and affordable employee benefits that help them to attract and retain high caliber employees. Implementing his solutions can usually save employers between $1,000 to $2,000 per employee per year with no reduction, and often an increase in the overall benefits to employees.

Visit Mike Chapman's web site at http://www.GroupBenefitsAdvisors.com where you can subscribe to his newsletter. You can also contact him at mtchapman@groupbenefitsadvisors.com

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