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While these factors do affect employer health costs, stress was identified as one of the worst things for employer health costs1.
Every day, roughly one million employees miss work because of stress. This has been reported to cost companies an average of $702 per employee per day2! Research shows that perceived stress promotes unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking and overeating. Furthermore, chronic stress leads to additional chronic conditions, thereby increasing healthcare costs. Wellness programs can mitigate these costs by providing education, advocacy and support that would enable the individual to not only identify lifestyle changes, but maintain them. In addition, areas such as financial concerns and access to nontraditional healthcare resources have also been considered issues in addressing treatment of chronic stress and disease.
In recognizing the relationship between stress and chronic illness, employers are further motivated to implement wellness programs. However, it is important that the chosen program is an individualized whole-person approach, such as the Integrated Health Advocacy Program (IHAP). Programs that target single issues are unsustainable for the employer if they are unable to produce a return on investment, and are also unsustainable for the employees if the participants do not know or understand their conditions.
The Integrated Health Advocacy Program (IHAP) addresses these problematic areas that other programs suffer from by advocating for the whole person, putting the patient at the center of care. To hear about how IHAP has changed the lives of its participants, view our testimonials here. For more information on changing the lives of employees while saving healthcare dollars, contact Dawn Tishkoff at 630-761-4427(IHAP) or dtishkoff@ihap.com.
1 Craver,J. (2016). The worst thing for employer health costs? Stress. Benefits Brokers. Retrieved from http://www.benefitspro.com/2016/03/10/the-worst-thing-for-employer-health-costs-stress?
2 MeQuilibrium, New Life Solution, Inc. (2013). The Cost of Stress in Your Organization & What You Should Do About It. Retrieved from https://www.mequilibrium.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/3-1-13-FINAL.pdf |
