Insights as to how employees and their dependents view health care is discovered in a new survey released by the National Business Group and performed by Hewitt. These insights are critical for businesses to recognize as they examine their existing and future health care plans. Help for prescription drugs is high on the list. 

In spite of the fact that employees say they might know how to get in good physical shape, many aren’t taking action to do so. Seventy two percent of the workers surveyed think that receiving regular preventive care will result in good health. Another 84% think that making wise decisions in their daily life will lead to overall good health. Only 46% of the workers surveyed reported doing a “great” or “good job” of regular exercising and only about half of the employees think they do a “great” or good job” of eating healthy. To help with the high prices of medication, most workers surveyed rated prescription program assistance very high. 

Participation in health programs is low, but satisfaction is high. Employees and dependents say they know what actions they need to take to get and stay healthy, but involvement in many employer-provided health enhancement programs is not as high as businesses would like. The most popular 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 had dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non financial, internal motivators can be just as effective. 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 workers surveyed would complete a health risk questionnaire About 30% of the individuals would complete a survey if there was a penalty for not doing so and an additional 30% would do it if there was a monetary incentive involved. In addition, 44% of the employees surveyed said they would be willing to participate in a wellness program provided by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.

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