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Insights as to how employees and their dependents view health care is discovered in a new survey released by the National Business Group and carried out by Hewitt. In order to plan their corporate health care strategies, it is critical to be aware of the results of the survey. Help for prescription medicines is high on the list. 

Many employees are not doing what they have to do to get healthy even though they know better. Seventy two percent of the workers surveyed believe that receiving regular preventive care will result in good health. An additional 84% think that making prudent 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 workers think they do a “great” or good job” of eating healthy. To assist with the expensive cost of drugs, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance incredibly high. 

Participation in health programs is low, but satisfaction is high. Participation in many employer provided health programs isn’t as high as many employers would like to see, even though workers and their dependents report that they know what they need to do to get and stay healthy. Biometric screenings are the most popular programs with online health information tools and health risk questionnaires following closely. Stress management programs and employee assistance programs (EAPs) were the least popular, with just nine percent participation in each. For workers that have dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non monetary, internal motivators can be just as effective. Many employers presume that offering cash incentives in exchange for involvement will generate the best results and incent employees to participate in health care programs. 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 take part in a wellness program furnished by their employer because “it is the right thing to do”.