Sixty percent of Wisconsin Film & Bag’s work force smokes, so it was not an easy decision when the company banned all smoking on its 8-acre premises here as part of its health cost management.
Wellness plan snuffs smoking at work
Oct. 27, 2006
Shawano – Sixty percent of Wisconsin Film & Bag’s work force smokes, so it was not an easy decision when the company banned all smoking on its 8-acre premises here as part of its health cost management.
“It was not a very popular decision,” said Beth Ingold, WFB’s human resources manager.
But the company is on the leading edge with its wellness initiatives, so compromise wasn’t in the game plan.
Asked at a health cost conference about the use of incentives and disincentives in WFB’s health plan, CEO Jack Riopelle said, “Well, if you smoke on premises, you lose your job.”
Now there’s a disincentive.
“If you believe in wellness,” he added, “smoking is the biggest contributor to unwellness there is.”
One employee disputed the findings that smoking adds as much as $1,300 to the annual cost of an employee’s health coverage. That employee is no longer with the company.
The company cites studies that show smokers using 6.5 more sick days a year than non-smokers and being 8% less productive because of smoking breaks.
One consultant at the Shawano meeting said that, nationally, 22% of the population smokes.
So serious is WFB about its wellness initiative that it ties its level of premiums for health coverage to wellness scores. The system is workable and legal because WFB gets 98% participation in the assessment – employees and spouses – and offers a complete wellness program.
The results of its health risk assessments are tied to metrics that put people either in a minimal risk category, moderate, medium, high or extreme risk. A minimal risk employee pays a lower premium for health care than the others. The extreme risk people, which includes those who don’t take the assessment, pay the highest.
One other company in Wisconsin, KI in Green Bay, uses a similar graduated premium plan based on wellness. In both cases, people can earn points for trying to get healthier, as well as for being healthy.
WFB’s cutting-edge wellness program has a number of other features. Coaching is provided for those who the assessments reveal to have a chronic condition, such as diabetes or high cholesterol.
The company subsidizes memberships in health clubs but, so far, only a low percentage take advantage of the $30 single or $60 family monthly subsidies. Employees must attend the fitness club 12 times a month to stay eligible.
The company sponsored a 12-week fitness/wellness challenge, in which 23 participants lost 250 pounds. Tobacco cessation is rewarded by a $300 reimbursement of health premiums.
One of the more interesting business practices that WFB uses is to aggregate the data from the health risk assessments on an annual basis to track if there is progress in the overall health of its employees. After three years, a slight improvement has been seen.
There is not a lot of hard data around to prove whether wellness and prevention programs pay off. Generally, the literature in health economics suggests a $3 to $5 return on every $1 investment in the programs.
The Shawano company spends about $20,000 on wellness, or less than $200 per year per employee.
The company has not gone to a consumer-driven plan yet, but still has kept its health costs to about $8000 per employee, a pretty low number for a company with so many smokers.
