What Health Providers Are Not Telling You.

The organizations with the most cost-efficient health plans are the ones that streamline the services workers receive for both their physical and mental health.

As a long-term goal, having your general health plan, employee assistance program (EAP) and wellness program communicating regularly with one another about employees’ treatments is the single best way to reduce redundant or contradictory treatments, eliminate unnecessary claims and improve the quality of the plans for which you pay.

Let’s look at the relationship between your wellness program and your employee assistance program to illustrate the importance of attacking healthcare costs cross a wide front.

You can start a wellness program with a health risk (assessment|appraisal} and then, if appropriate, roll out a smoking cessation program or a weight loss program.

But ultimately you want to make certain that your wellness provider works and your employee assistance program provider.

Here’s why –  It’s very common for an staff member to contact the EAP because the individuals feels depressed about his or her weight. What you want is for the EAP vendor to treat the employee’s depression and behavioral issues, plus you want the EAP to refer the staff member to the wellness program to deal with the root cause of the problem – obesity.

The same thing accompanies the relationship your wellness program and your workers’ comp vendor, STD and LTD vendors, rehab people , and/or illness managers. You want all them talking to – and sharing data with – each other. When they’re not, it’s costing you money.

In general, the companys who achieve the greatest cost savings through their wellness programs are the ones who overlap wellness with behavioral and occupational health issues.