The Workplace as a Battleground for Curbing Health Costs

This week, Johnson & Johnson’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Weldon added a new activity to his day—blogging.  He became a contributor, for the very first time as he acknowledged, to the JNJBTW blog for company employees.  His post reinforces the idea that employers need to have a more involved role in attacking disease and he outlines how Johnson & Johnson has established wellness techniques to do just that.

He wrote:

“J&J employees get a $500 discount off their health insurance premiums if they work to reduce their health risks – things like smoking, overeating, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, hypertension and stress.  We try to make this easier to do, with on-site clinics, screenings, counseling, gym facilities, and cafeterias that served healthy food.  We also have interactive and personalized digital health coaching that’s available 24/7. The coaching is tailored to each person’s motivations, confidence level, medical needs, personal characteristics and lifestyle.

So what’s the result?  Only 4 percent of J&J employees smoke compared with more than 18 percent of Americans. Less than 7 percent of our people have high blood pressure, yet 28 percent of the U.S. public does.  Seven percent of J&J employees have high cholesterol, while five times as many Americans – 37 percent – do. 

With those kinds of changes, we estimate we’ve avoided some $21 million in costs from 2001 to 2009 alone.  Our health care costs are trending 4 percent below increases for industries such as ours.  And our return on investment has been 4 to 1, about $4 in healthcare and productivity savings for every dollar we’ve spent on prevention.”

There is no doubt that employer wellness programs can play a tremendous role in controlling healthcare costs.  Currently, chronic disease accounts for 75 percent of U.S. healthcare spending.  With more organizations taking this kind of activist role, the private sector can bend the health cost curve while also increasing workforce productivity.