Total health and wellness strategy vital to balance needs and costs – Liberty

Sole focus on medical aid benefits is unlikely to address the challenge of health needs and affordability. A total health and wellness strategy is needed in tandem with wider appreciation of cost impacts and risks faced by businesses that fail to invest in employee wellbeing.

So says Nick Gallimore, managing director, Liberty Health, consumer marketing – a business committed to innovation and value-for-money solutions in an increasingly challenging sector.

Liberty Health is driving a product development strategy based on rigorous market segmentation to meet precisely defined consumer needs while combating cost increases. It simultaneously offers wellness packages that enable employers to address costs associated with absenteeism, high medical claims and poor productivity.

“There are compelling reasons to consider employee benefits an investment rather than a cost,” says Gallimore.

“A company’s health investment should not only fund appropriate benefits but support an environment in which an employee’s output is optimised because physical health and mental stress are well managed.

“Well structured interventions assure continuing returns on health investment.”

Liberty Health engages in continuing market education to demonstrate the relationship between wellness investment and cost efficiency. International experience supports the proposition.

A study earlier this year in the US Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed that employers can save $1.65 in healthcare expenses for every dollar spent. Data was gathered by Pittsburgh health insurer, Highmark Inc.

Other studies indicate:

· Savings of $42 355 per 1 000 active employees after General Motors and the United Auto Workers launched their LifeSteps wellness programme

· A 15% cut in absenteeism at Johnson and Johnson within two years of introducing their wellness programme while hospital costs were slashed by 34% after three years

· Employees enrolled in the Northern Gas Company exercise programme take 80% fewer sick days than non-exercising peers

· A 27% fall in medical claims by members of the GE Aircraft fitness centre while claims by non-members rose 17%

· A 1.8% annual staff turnover rate among wellness programme members at the Canada Life Assurance Company versus a company average of 18%

· A 12.5% productivity increase among NASA fitness programme members versus non-participants

“Wellness leverages savings while enhancing health and motivation,” says Gallimore. “Further cost efficiency can then be fostered by selecting medical benefit packages that target well-defined market segments.”

Market segmentation is increasingly adopted by industry leaders. For example, Liberty Health Medical Scheme (LHMS) recently innovated through the Gold Plus option for young families and changes to its Corporate Network for lower paid earners.

Contributions to the Corporate Network are determined according to four different pay brackets and provide access to a comprehensive range of affordable services. Gold Plus is a family healthcare plan that includes cover for common childhood procedures such as laser tonsillectomy and visits to the dentist, plus flu injections, immunisation, in-hospital costs for childbirth and other benefits important to growing families.

Gallimore notes: “There is limited budget for health, both in the public and private sectors. It is therefore important to develop solutions that target the real needs of various sectors of society.

“A segmentation approach allows you to design benefits that are a 100% fit for the targeted group. What you want is what you get.

“For long-term cost effectiveness, employers will increasingly support benefit packages with a wellness offering. Researchers say about 80% of illness and disease is preventable, suggesting scope for savings through better weight management, nutrition and greater exercise.

“Prevention is not only better than cure, it’s cheaper.”