Why?

State exchanges are scheduled to open this October. For employers, this means they can expect their employees to start hearing more about health care exchanges starting this summer. In response, employers that use benefits as an attraction and retention tool with talent must make extra effort to employ effective marketing to differentiate their offerings and engage employees in using them. The reason is simple; smart employers know employees can’t appreciate benefits they don’t understand or participate in.

To ensure marketing is effective, there are standard strategic questions experienced marketers always ask before creating any communication. These include: What is the objective? Who is the target audience? What are the current barriers for action for this target audience? What key messages or “hooks” will resonate with this audience?

Another key step to creating successful employee health marketing is staying current with trends of how to deliver those messages. For example, at a time when many busy employees can’t even make it through their email inbox, giving information in quick, easy-to-understand visuals such as infographics are important tools in today’s marketing toolbox.

As a reference for award-winning marketing with population health management, I invite you to view the slideshow below. This May HealthFitness won 12 awards of excellence for our health management digital and brand work, videos, and integrated campaigns; this slideshow highlights our work recently recognized by marketing experts.

For additional insights into HealthFitness’ approach with marketing, please visit my previous post: Reasons to rethink your corporate wellness marketing.

HealthFitness’ award-winning health management marketing

The 2013 Annual MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends found that employees who feel they work at a great place are more satisfied with the range and relevance of their benefits programs. This insight suggests that great places to work are effective at creating awareness and connecting employees to benefits that are meaningful.

With health management, a program can be greater than the sum of all parts—provided that all parts are integrated. Integration among all employee health providers helps ensure employees are aware and steered toward the right programs and benefits.

For participants, integration is most visible in unique, cohesive branding used with all corporate health offerings.

For employers, effective integration among employee health providers is contingent on several quality indicators.

These quality indicators include:

• Business plan: A unified strategic plan is needed to align the activities of various health-related functions (health management, employee assistance programs (EAP) and safety, for example) to the company’s overall mission, goals and objectives.
• Reporting structure: A best-practice reporting structure has all of the health-related teams report to the same person, ensuring everyone is guided by the same goals and on the same road to success.
• Referral system: Coordinate health plan benefits, EAP, condition management, occupational health, fitness management and health management services so they function cohesively to ease program referrals and present a united brand to the employees and family members they serve.
• Information management: Collect, compare and analyze health-related data from all health-related functions, and require data sharing and reporting among health-related providers to allow the referral system to function properly.
• Programming: Have health-related functions work together to implement programming. For example, expect your health management provider to work with the food service vendor to make healthy choices available and visible in the cafeterias and in vending machines.
• Partnership marketing: Have health-related providers cross-promote programs, services and activities to increase awareness and participation.

Integration is one of HealthFitness’ 7 Cornerstones for successful employee health programs. To learn more about integration and the 7 Cornerstones framework to build and sustain a culture a health, please download our eBook: How to turn wellness programs into the corporate culture.

The Affordable Care Act has several provisions designed to help improve employee health and expand health promotion activities. Below is the status of several health care reform provisions related to wellness programs:

• The proposed regulations on wellness program incentives technically have not been finalized. However, the provision that allows an employer to increase the incentive amount under a health-contingent wellness program, from 20% up to 30% of the cost of coverage as of the first plan year on or after Jan. 1, 2014, is part of the statute. This means an employer could increase the incentive amount to 30% in 2014, even if the regulations aren’t yet final, without “breaking the law.” From a practical standpoint, it might be prudent to wait until the regulations are final, but this decision is up to each employer.
• The Affordable Care Act established a technical assistance role for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide resources for evaluating employer wellness programs. This includes training employers on how to evaluate their programs and providing a survey to help assess employer-based wellness policies and programs. These resources are available and you can find them here on the CDC’s Website.
• The Affordable Care Act called for $200 million to be set aside for wellness program start-up grants for small businesses to develop wellness programs between 2011 and 2015. This funding has not yet been made available.
• A 40% excise tax on high-cost or “Cadillac” plans takes effect in 2018 for plans with an annual cost of more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. In response, employers may decide to step up their wellness efforts today to better control their future health care costs.

With the ongoing demands of new regulations, staying on top of health care reform is a challenge. To learn more about health care reform changes affecting employer health coverage, I encourage you to visit our parent company’s blog: Trustmark & Healthcare Reform.

To learn more about how HealthFitness partners with employers to effectively improve employee health, please visit Our Approach.

In short, the health care delivery system is realizing a need for programs that assist members in actively participating in care and managing their health. To achieve a functioning value-based care model, the health care system must engage the individual as a member of his or her own care team.

With preventive programs being on the right side of the medical loss ratio, health plans have an incentive for offering health management capabilities. Not only do these programs support the provider network in engaging participants, but they also drive cost savings, offer a valued benefit to a plan’s employer clients, and potentially add value to plans’ exchange products.

As you explore options for building your plan’s health management partnership, view the slideshow below of the top 10 capabilities to look for when selecting a population health management vendor.

For a deeper dive into these recommendations,  I encourage you to download the issue brief “Health plan top 10—Partnership checklist for population health” and/or post questions or discussion points in the comments section.

Health plan top 10 checklist for a health management partner

The survey, conducted to coincide with April’s Stress Awareness Month reinforces the need to provide employees with stress management tools that change behaviors and lifestyles. Numerous other studies echo this same point.

An American Psychological Association survey showed nine out of 10 adults report understanding that stress can contribute to the development of major health problems, such as heart disease, depression and obesity.

Yet, this awareness alone has not moved a good portion of the population to do anything about it. Less than a third of adults say they are doing “excellent” or a “very good job” at managing or reducing stress, leaving plenty of room for improvement.

Through the corporate fitness centers and wellness programs we manage for clients, we know key factors to gaining participation in stress management programs are ease of use and the ability to fit into a jam-packed schedule.

Below is a short video where I explain a few ways we are successfully engaging participants in stress management programs through the workplace fitness centers and wellness programs we manage for large employers.

One remarkable new information source is the Chronic Conditions Dashboard, hosted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It’s an interactive resource that provides researchers with a huge database of beneficiary claims and assessment data. Researchers will use this as a ready reference tool to accelerate studies and analysis using the latest available claims data. Individuals can access the dashboard, too, to see where their state ranks against other states or national averages for 15 chronic diseases.

Although the Chronic Conditions Dashboard data comes from Medicare and Medicaid population data rather than workforce data—with a higher proportion of young children and older Americans no longer in the workforce– it’s a sign of more data and transparency in health care to come. If our goal is improved health for populations, we need to know where the starting line is drawn.

Also in recent news, legislators in North Carolina have proposed a law that would require hospitals to post their prices for 50 common care episodes. At least 14 states already require collection of health care cost data for consumers to use, but only New Hampshire and Maine publish cost estimates online. It’s all in the name of transparency and giving consumers the information they need to make sound choices about their health.

Data and details matter in the health management programs and services we deliver. We spend a lot of time developing ways to make populations healthier, so ongoing measurement is essential. And to truly have a population focus, we must benchmark and personalize the data to make it actionable for individuals—using proprietary algorithms to slice and dice the information for a personal report and individualized guidance.

It’s a recipe to gain their attention and engagement so we can work across a population to keep the healthy well, help those with health risks make a change, and guide those with chronic conditions to the care they need to improve quality of life. This science-based approach to screening and assessment is paired with a personalized approach, because data can’t deliver all that’s necessary for health management program success. Big data is a great tool–when leveraged by experts in health management to engage individuals in proven programs for healthy change.

Yet, Tower Watson’s 2011/2012 Staying@Work Survey Report: A Pathway to Employee Health and Workplace Productivity report indicates senior leadership support of health management initiatives in many companies is surprisingly lacking. According to the survey:

• Only 26% of respondents said managers and/or senior leaders volunteer to be health champions or to serve as role models for healthful lifestyles.
• Less than 20% of respondents said managers participate in periodic employee health communication.
• Senior leaders who personalize messages are uncommon. Less than 20% of respondents report that leaders share their health stories.

In HealthFitness’ 7 Cornerstones approach to effective employee health programs, establishing corporate leadership and support is the first cornerstone. Yes, top-level leadership that can commit financial and other resources needed for wellness program success is critical. In addition, however, the CEO, CFO or senior leadership involvement must be visible to employees.

A wise organization recognizes that employees listen to the words, but trust the behavior exhibited by senior management. Endorsement letters and videos are strong communication tools, but better yet is when the CEO is the first in line for the health screening.

Additionally, corporate support includes access to decision-makers when it is needed. Some of the most successful employee health management programs have visible leadership that can be called upon for support—whether it’s taking the first official step in a new walking program or approving strategic program decisions.

Another form of corporate support lies in tying the value of employee health to the company’s business success. Is employee health in the mission or vision statement? Is it part of the organization’s core business strategy?

When an awareness of health and healthy living infuses the company culture, it appears in policies and procedures across the operation. Examples include tobacco-free worksite policies, on-site fitness centers or safe walking trails.

Interested in learning more strategies to build an effective health management program? Download the quick-read eBook 7 Cornerstones: How to turn wellness programs into the corporate culture and an in-depth issue brief Infusing health in your sphere of influence: Seven secrets of success.

The February issue of Health Affairs focuses on patients’ activation in health systems. Defining patient activation as “the skills and confidence that equip patients to be actively involved in their health care,” Judith Hibbard, a senior researcher at the Health Policy Research Group, draws a correlation between activation and improved health results. Drawing evidence from a number of recent studies, Hibbard notes that “policies and interventions aimed at strengthening patients’ role in managing their health care can contribute to improved outcomes.”

Currently, the discussion around activation focuses heavily on resources, processes and infrastructure within health systems. Howard Koh, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, advocates health literacy as the foundation for improving activation. In Koh’s view, the health care system has become “so complex that it challenges the comprehension even of sophisticated patients.” His answer is to change the focus of efforts from increasing patients’ information deficits to simplifying the information and the system itself.

Certainly, efforts to make the health care system more user-friendly would go far in enabling participants’ effective self-care. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the individual’s participation still plays a crucial role in the success of his or her own health care. In addition to the ease of taking informed actions, individuals need confidence and motivation to effectively manage their health.

This is where health management programs will continue to play a role.

Specializing in the complex anatomy of an individual’s behavior, specialty health coaching programs can integrate with providers and health systems as a component of the care team. With the efforts of groups such as the National eHealth Collaborative driving a standard for defining activation, health management programs can help to activate participants and integrate activation into the care process.

Do you see this as a realistic goal for post-reform care? Do you agree that health management can help drive outcomes within health systems?

Can’t see the content below? Visit our Storify with conference highlights here.

This year’s theme of the conference is “producing the best health and financial outcomes by using the most effective health promotion strategies.”

It was definitely an interesting first day. Learn two key highlights discussed during the day’s presentations in the brief video below.

For additional insights from the conference, read our Tweetwall.