Dive Brief:
- An article at Harvard Business Review makes a case saying that wellness programs are losing propositions -- and that evidence proving such is on the rise. According to the article, that evidence is coming from both critics of wellness and wellness industry members.
- Overall, writes Al Lewis and Vik Khanna -- co-founders of Quizzify, a company that teaches employees how to buy and use health care -- the evidence is compelling enough that employers who may be ready to commit to wellness or are already offering their own programs should recalcuate projected savings.
- The authors note that revisting a wellness program is especially compelling for employers who would need "significant savings" to justify the negative morale impact that some wellness efforts can create.
Dive Insight:
The authors cite a report from the Population Health Alliance (PHA) and the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), two industry wellness industry trade associations. In that report, the authors write, it's acknowledged that saving money via wellness is unlikely, "at least over the two-year period their example program covered."
Lewis and Khanna also write that entities including the nonprofit RAND Corporation, the mainstream media and others have largely reached the same conclusion, which is "considering lack of payback, low morale and possible health hazards," corporate wellness programs don't work and should be abolished.
To their credit, the authors do say they are biased against wellness, given that their firm offers employee-education programs. They believe that "vendors specializing in price transparency, care coordination and employee health care education all provide much more transparent and valuable services at lower prices" than corporate wellness programs.
No doubt there will be counter-points to the HBR article fueling this ongoing debate. For example, millennials are said to actually enjoy and expect wellness programs.
