This is the first part in a two-part Q & A series with professionals who specialize in using technology to manage wellness. Here, WTIA interviews Michael Cochran, the Director of Wellness at Regence.

How do you incorporate managed wellness programs into your services?

One of the significant advantages of leveraging the health and wellness programs offered by your health plan has to do the with integration opportunities that can be realized.  At Regence, this takes many forms, from integration of related programs (disease and case management are a great example), health information and data integration (for purposes of reporting, analytics, targeted messaging, and risk stratification for member outreach), promotion and integration of age- and gender-specific preventive activities for incentive purposes, and website integration to name a few.  Another example is how our health coaches work with our disease and case management teams to ensure that when a member needs assistance in lifestyle behavior change they get the guidance that they need.  We would submit that given the breadth and depth of services offered, the best entity to manage the health of your workforce is your health plan, and at Regence we integrate many of our services with our health and wellness efforts. At the end of the day, worker health is a critical business issue for employers today, and the integration of our health plan and wellness programs gives us an advantage in that endeavor. 

How have wellness programs impacted your services?

Wellness programs have provided us with the opportunity to integrate these health promotion and prevention efforts into many of the services that we provide.  At Regence, we believe that health is more than merely the absence of disease but also should include being energetic and vibrant and to achieve this it is critically important to incorporate health promotion activities into our services. 

For those companies who have managed wellness programs, do you see an impact on their team’s health and usage of health coverage?

Yes, we have seen a positive impact on the health of the populations of which we serve.  At Regence, we’ve had a health and wellness program in place for several years and the results of our efforts have been rather dramatic.  We examined the utilization of our 5,000+ employees over a 5-year period of time and found that we saved $9.2 million in three areas: medical claims, disability, and unplanned absences. At Regence, we emphasize a broader health and productivity strategy, to include the impact that absenteeism, presenteeism, disability, and worker’s compensation can have a company’s bottom line.  We want to change the conversation from just looking at the cost of healthcare to the total value of health and productivity and to assist employers with maintaining their most valuable asset – their employees.  Additionally, we feel that the best health care dollar is the one that’s not spent and the best way to do this is to keep people healthy to begin with. 

How are insurance companies & wellness programs working together? What is the future of managed wellness?

Insurance companies and stand-alone wellness programs have a long history of working together.  For employers who choose a stand-alone wellness program instead of leveraging the wellness programs typically offered by their health plan, there are varying levels of integration.  These integration efforts are generally driven by the employer and can take many forms.  At a minimum some integration efforts involve a coordination and promotion of certain similar activities like age- and gender-specific preventive exams and biometric screenings.  At the other end of the spectrum, and a goal for some employers, is a much deeper level of integration to include data sharing for purposes of measuring outcomes and providing incentives for a variety of health promotion and prevention activities.  

The future of these programs is very bright, especially for those employers who recognize that employee health can drive financial success, especially in today’s global economy. Research has shown that companies that have well-designed worksite health programs are more profitable than those who don’t.  Worker health, and its associated expense, is a serious business issue for companies today and integrating workforce strategies for health into the corporate culture is a critical part of the solution.  At Regence, we are changing the conversation from just looking at the cost of healthcare to the total value of health and productivity and to assist employers with maintaining their most valuable asset – their employees.

What do people like the most about these managed wellness programs?

There are many things that employees like about these programs. But recent research has shown that one of things that employees like most is that when a company offers such a program, and when the employer actually provides time and resources for employee participation, it demonstrates that the employer cares about health of the employees. This in turn can have a positive impact on employee morale and productivity.   

Are people’s health habits really changing through managed wellness programs?

When it comes to changing health behaviors, it can take time and a dedicated effort. The key is to focus on making small changes, providing an environment to support those changes and rewarding those efforts.  One way to measure the impact of changing health behaviors, and a focus of our health and productivity programs at Regence, is to measure the progression of employees moving from a higher risk health status to a lower risk health status.  Employees moving from a higher risk to lower risk is a good proxy for improving health behaviors and can lower overall health care costs, too. 

The use of technology is one of the primary methods that we use to measure health risk reduction.  For example, we use the tools on our web platform to measure health risk and the movement therein.  This includes the ability upload biometrics information to our platform which makes health risk identification more robust and provides important information on health risk to the consumer.