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Greetings!
The new year brings with it new opportunities. Employer-managed healthcare is no different. The scope of what is happening and who is involved continues to magnify. From expanding IT applications to a plethora of studies and reports, to all sorts of employers evaluating and implementing their own wellness and on-site programs, the industry continues to evolve.
REMINDER: The 19th Annual Health Benefits Conference & Expo is being held in Florida yet this month (January 25-26 in Clearwater Beach). A great opportunity to network with others who are already involved in employer-managed healthcare and attend informative sessions from experts.
What we hope will be an important study has been initiated through a grant sponsored by the Robert Wood-Johnson Foundation. The primary investigator working at the Center for Studying Health Change is Ms. Ha T. Tu. The grant period is a mere seven months, ending June 30, 2010. The research focus is all about employer use of workplace health clinics: who does it, how are the clinics structured, what are the short and long term ROIs, and many other issues. We will be following the study and reporting the results here and on our Web site.
Now, on to other items in the news this past two weeks. |
| Insurers Take the Plunge into On-site Services |
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In a lengthy article in the AIS Health Business Daily, several insurance companies were noted to have on-site services for their own employees. The insurers included Highmark (which used Take Care Health Systems, a division of Walgreen's Co.), BlueCross/BlueShield of Tennessee (using Comprehensive Health Services), and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ (the article indicated that this was contracted through I-trax; however, I-trax was also incorporated into Take Care Health Systems sometime ago). All have reported success, and Highmark, in particular, stated that it expected to save $5,000,000 over a five-year period. BCBSNJ has three in-house clinics which opened in 2005 and saved more than $500,000 for them in 2008. It is felt that some of the insurers will use these as models to market to their larger customers.
Also of note, in an interview posted January 5, 2010 on philly.com, the new Cigna CEO, David M. Cordani, indicated that "Looking ahead. . . Other possible acquisition targets are companies that provide health-care services, including on-site clinics at workplaces."
All this follows on news that we reported in earlier issues regarding QuadMed services on the Northwestern campus and CHS providing services to Hewitt. With Cigna and others entering the business space, it is obvious that insurance groups planning for their own benefits "get it" when it comes to on-site and workplace programming. |
| Resources Available through Wellness Council of America |
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You may want to "check this out." There are multiple free reports available on the Wellness Council of America Web site http://www.welcoa.org related to understanding, evaluating, and implementing wellness programs for your employees. The list of titles and areas they cover are too numerous to go into here, but they range from understanding incentives to specific wellness program options and guides, to calculating the ROI on your programs. In addition, the Wellness Council is offering a 2010 Webinar Series on behavior change in your employees. Again, get more information about the Webinar by visiting the Wellness Council Web site. |
| For more on-site clinic news, visit our Web site at www.onsiteclinics.org . | |
One final bit to mention in this issue - about technology. It affects all of us every day, and it is definitely affecting health and wellness. Mayo Clinic Health Solutions is now offering its wellness tools through the EmbodyHealth portal to all of its TPA clients who can, in turn, offer it to their employees. Other vendors are working to put personal health records on cell phones. The ways in which employers can connect and communicate with their employees on health-related matters will only continue to grow and simplify or complicate the provision of benefits, depending upon how you look at it. Sincerely,
Mike La Penna
The La Penna Group, Inc.
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