Health and wellness of employees have a direct effect on their productivity. Employers that support and promote wellness reap a significant variety of benefits without incurring significant expenses.
Insurance companies know the trend and offer options that help you promote wellness in the workplace. One of these tools is wellness dollars. Learning how to leverage them allows you to improve employee health, satisfaction, productivity, and retention.
Let’s take a closer look at key things to consider about wellness dollars.
What Exactly are Wellness Dollars?
Wellness dollars are special funds that some insurance companies offer employers for investing in employee wellness programs. These funds can cover a variety of wellness-related perks, including gym memberships, yoga classes, chair massages, wearable devices, and much more.
Wellness dollars allow you to streamline your wellness program, offer the best employee perks, and improve the workplace environment. They also give you an opportunity to experiment with employee recognition programs.
Information is Money
Not all insurance companies offer wellness dollars. However, since they come with impressive advantages, their availability could become a deciding factor when choosing the best insurance carrier for your business.
If your insurance company doesn’t offer wellness dollars, it doesn’t mean you can’t have them. When the contract time comes, you can explain the importance of implementing a wellness program for your business and ask the carrier to support it.
Many organizations don’t know that their insurance company offers wellness dollars and fail to take full advantage of their premium. Insurance companies aren’t interested in giving you extra money unless you ask for it. Meanwhile, overwhelmed HR specialists don’t always dig deep enough to discover this option.
How are Wellness Dollars Related to Utilization Management?
Utilization management applies to wellness dollars the same way it applies to other healthcare benefits. You can evaluate the need for a wellness program in the workplace and use wellness dollars to improve it.
Meanwhile, a high-quality wellness program can have a positive effect on employees’ health. This, in turn, allows them not to take advantage of insurance benefits. Accordingly, wellness dollars simplify utilization management and save employers and insurance companies money.
Are Wellness Dollars Managed by Insurance?
The insurance company decides how you can use wellness dollars for your employees. They could cover gym memberships or weekly wellness activities. Alternatively, the insurance could reimburse fitness programs and health coaching.
The company also dictates the maximum amount it can provide for wellness activities as well as time limitations for leveraging the reimbursement program.
It’s up to the employer to decide how to take advantage of the services reimbursed by wellness dollars. Information to consider when choosing this part of the wellness program includes:
- A high number of insurance claims related to a certain condition – can help you figure out what type of fitness programs to offer.
- The overall health of your employees – if it’s good, you may want to focus on preventing health risks, stress management, and nutrition.
- Employee feedback – employees often know what wellness activities they need the most.
The insurance company provides wellness dollars annually. Accordingly, you can test one program every year until you figure out where these dollars work best. If you are working with an HR platform that manages wellness reimbursement, you can design an effective program with wellness dollars in mind.
How To Use Wellness Dollars
While the insurance company sets certain limits and requirements for using wellness dollars, it’s up to the employer to leverage them in the best way possible.
Implement New Wellness Programs
Extra dollars allow you to implement new wellness programs or activities for your employees. For example, you could try:
- Corporate nutrition program to promote healthy eating
- Wellness incentives (however, you need to remember that wellness incentives are taxable)
- In-office massage services
- Stress management programs
- Chronic disease management programs
You could also invest in software that creates wellness portals for each employee, helping them take full advantage of the programs you offer.
Expand Existing Wellness Programs
If you already have a wellness program, you can use the extra money to improve it. For example, if you have a weight loss program that mostly focuses on fitness, you can use wellness dollars for:
- Weight loss counseling
- Weight loss incentives (giving a reward when the person reaches their weight goal.)
- Nutrition education
The more perks you offer in your wellness programs, the more likely employees are to take advantage of them. Wellness dollars allow you to do just that.
Personalize Your Wellness Programs
When it comes to wellness, personalization is key to ensuring top results. You can take the time to study your workforce’s top needs and use wellness dollars to meet them.
For example, some employees require health education and relaxation activities while others need better fitness programs and expanded gym memberships.
In many cases, employees need work-related wellness assistance, such as conflict resolution training or stress-relief coaching.
Buy Wearables
Did you know that a fitness tracker can improve a person’s health? Besides encouraging daily activities and weight loss, they can help lower blood pressure and keep cholesterol in check.
Today, about 20% of Americans wear fitness trackers. You can use wellness dollars to purchase devices for employees who don’t have them or upgrade those that they currently use.
Benefits of Wellness Dollars
Wellness dollars help you improve your existing wellness programs and create new initiatives. With this extra money, you can take better care of your employees and enjoy such benefits as:
Higher Productivity
Nine out of ten business leaders agree that promoting wellness boosts worker productivity. Healthier and happier employees are more engaged and productive. This has a direct impact on the company’s bottom line.
Improved Retention
Well-designed and sponsored wellness programs stimulate the positive well-being of employees. Besides being physically healthier, these employees are happier and more stable financially.
When your workers experience security, stability, and satisfaction, they are less likely to leave the company.
Accordingly, wellness dollars can help you retain top talent amidst The Great Resignation when thousands of workers are searching for new employment opportunities.
Higher Engagement Rates
Engagement is the driving force behind the company’s productivity. That’s why businesses implement various employee engagement strategies. One of them is a wellness program.
When employees are in good health and feel that the company is taking care of them, they are more likely to be engaged at work.
Better Recruitment Opportunities
Besides preventing staff turnover, wellness dollars can help you recruit top talent by allowing you to create a highly effective wellness program. A high-quality wellness program could become a deciding factor for a talented candidate who is choosing between several job offers.
Healthier Employees
Wellness dollars allow you to improve the health of your employees. This reduces the number of health insurance and workers’ comp claims and prevents workers from taking sick leaves. As a result, you get a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.
Today, less than 50% of employers take full advantage of wellness programs. This gives those who do a competitive edge.
How to Roll Out a Wellness Dollar Program
To start taking advantage of wellness dollars, you need to:
Speak to the Insurance Company
Your insurance carrier can explain exactly what the options for using wellness dollars are. Topics to discuss are reimbursement amounts, time limitations, and wellness service restrictions.
Do Your Research
Figure out how wellness dollars can provide top results for your existing wellness program. Is it reasonable to implement a new program? Can some employees benefit from a more personalized approach?
If you don’t have a wellness program yet, wellness dollars provide an opportunity to test new programs and figure out how they work for your company.
Ask for Employee Feedback
Talk to your employees to find out how they would like to improve the existing wellness program. Give them options to choose from.
Ensure Transparency
Your wellness program can only yield results if employees take advantage of it. Many companies don’t communicate the available options to their workforce. As a result, wellness programs have a low ROI.
Make sure your employees know exactly how they can use wellness opportunities. Talk about incentives and benefits.
Wellness Dollars Can Improve Your Company’s Bottom Line
Wellness dollars are an underused insurance perk that can make a big difference for your company. They can enhance your wellness programs, boost productivity, focus on employee health, improve retention, and much more.
To take advantage of this option, you can contact your insurance carrier to discuss the details. If the company doesn’t offer wellness dollars, you can negotiate this option at the next contract renewal.
The main reason why many companies don’t use wellness dollars is that they don’t know about them. By leveraging Refresh’s HR platform, you don’t just learn all about insurance opportunities, you can streamline your wellness program, improve its ROI, and help your company thrive.To learn more about the way Refresh works, schedule a free demo today.