A Modern Take on Workforce Health and Well-Being

On-site workforce health centers are quickly becoming the solution that many insurance brokers and consultants are turning to in order to help their clients increase the productivity, health, and retention of their employees, while at the same time reducing healthcare claims and direct costs.

Indeed, on-site health centers, where the focus is on risk reduction, are part of a growing trend.

The Impact on Workforce Health

According to the “Worksite Medical Clinics 2012 Survey Report” from health and human resources consultant Mercer, twenty-six percent of employers with 500-4,999 employees, and 52 percent of employers with 5,000 or more employees, are expected to have on-site clinics before the end of 2015.

Brokers and consultants play an important role in the process of workforce healthcare. They are often the catalyst for adoption as they understand how the benefit plan structure and the on-site health center can work together to drive engagement and results (reduced cost of healthcare) for the employer. Brokers with self-funded clients with 1,000-plus employees in one location can take advantage of this service to increase access to care, provide high quality care, and improve the benefits mix offered to the employees.

Driving ROI

At Marathon Health, we routinely see ROIs of 3:1 and higher for our clients who implement on-site health centers. We’re so confident in the savings that we go at risk to guarantee savings during contracting.

The first step for brokers and consultants in pitching on-site health care delivery to employers is explaining that employers should not be focused on reducing cost by repositioning the current “retail” health care delivery system into their health plans.  Instead, they should be focused on the best practices of “population health improvement,” which is identifying those with high- and moderate-health risks within their population and pursuing strategies to mitigate the risk and reduce future prevalence rates. Explain to employers that they should be asking potential clinical vendors how they identify and engage risk, not what their unit cost pricing is for primary and acute care. Producing a return on investment and reducing health spending trends is only achieved by negating the future health care consumption of high risk members. This is the entire purpose of an on-site total population health management program.

Check out our other blog posts for other innovative ways to reduce costs.