My employer just announced a new wellness program and says it will charge me more for my health insurance if I don’t participate. Why?
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s study of 2014 health benefits found that almost all large employers (those with 200 or more employees) and nearly three-fourths of smaller employers that offer health benefits also offer wellness programs. Some of the programs give you access to free services, such as weight-loss programs, on-site exercise facilities (or gym membership discounts), smoking-cessation programs, nutrition classes, flu shots and wellness newsletters.
More than one-third of the large employers (and 18% of small employers) provide a financial incentive for employees to participate, by reducing health insurance premiums or deductibles, making contributions to participants’ health savings accounts, or offering gift cards, cash or merchandise.
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The rewards can be big: Nearly one-third of the employers that provide a financial incentive for completing (not just participating in) a wellness program offer a maximum of $500 or more. Likewise, more than half the large firms offer employees a financial incentive to take a health risk assessment, and more than one-third offer a maximum reward of more than $500. Others rely on a stick rather than a carrot; 7% of the large firms that offer health risk assessments penalize employees who are found to have health risk factors but don’t complete a wellness program.
Nearly half the employers offering biometric screening to measure cholesterol, blood pressure, stress or nutrition give employees $500 or more for participating, and 8% bestow financial rewards or impose penalties based on outcomes (such as meeting a target body mass index or managing cholesterol levels).
You’re likely to see even more emphasis on wellness benefits in 2015. The National Business Group on Health found that 46% of large employers plan to make contributions to employees’ HSAs based on completing a wellness or education program (up from 30% in 2014), and 13% plan to make contributions based on progress towards a health goal. See What to Expect From Your Health Insurance in 2015 for more information. Keep these incentives in mind when picking your plan and making other health-care decisions during open enrollment this fall.
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