Wellness

Population Risk Management

Worksite wellness programs have been in existence for more than 25 years. Driven by organizations that wanted to provide a better workplace for employees, these programs were viewed as a perk more than a business strategy. However, within the last five years, there has been substantive recognition that wellness programs are one of the last options to take cost out of the Health Care system.

How Is wellness the answer?


The only remaining variable of consequence to control the costs for employer-provided Health Benefits is the proper utilization of an organizations Health plan. Plan costs are not going down and the fees to administer those plans are rising. Lack of understanding by employees and their dependents on what benefits they have and how to use these benefits continually drives costs upward. Take the example of the employee who does not have a Primary Care Physician and uses the Emergency Room as a doctor's office. Or the employee or the spouse of the employee who does not realize that the health plan covers pre-natal care? In both of these cases, lack of understanding and improper utilization of available benefits are key elements to our nation's runaway health costs.

And, what about the simple step of preventative care? This is wellness at its most basic form. Proactive health care will decrease unwanted plan utilization by advocating and encouraging employees to engage in positive lifestyle choices to find their own best health. In addition to lifestyle choices, preventative "wellness" care must include health compliance matters; are eligible employees and dependents getting their mammograms, PSA tests, colonoscopies, etc. on an age and gender prescribed basis? Do employees and dependents have Primary Care Physicians (PCP) and are they having annual exams? Do they know what tests to ask their PCP to perform and do they know what the results of those tests mean? All of this care is dependent upon health education and benefits coverage, which most people say exists outside the scope of wellness programming. Or does it?

Wellness cannot be a silo-ed effort.

Coordination with all the health tools available to employees and dependents is critical to the success of a wellness program. At every turn, it is the responsibility of a wellness program to communicate, advocate and promote all of the health tools available. In fact today, many companies in the United States have made worksite wellness programs a major priority tied to corporate strategy to effect positive change not only in health costs, but worker's compensation claims, absentee rates, retention, recruiting and overall productivity. Human Resources officers should recognize wellness as an indispensable, tangible program that is strategic in approach, fully integrated with the overall health plan and the link to a complete continuum of care for all employees and dependents.

Lifestyle Coaching

We pride ourselves with holistic LifeStyle coaching solutions for employees and dependents. With a focus on the life issues that impede health and well-being, IWS methodically and professionally delivers results to assist participants with a wealth of behavior changing solutions to every day challenges.

Education for Change

We recognize that, in order to have the greatest impact - to help people make lasting change - we needed to take a different approach.

The traditional manner of imparting information, especially on a subject as extensive as "health & wellness," is typically nothing more than a data dump.

People are not changed by data alone.

Information is available by the truckload today - a lot of it for FREE - through the internet, library books, journal articles, etc.

With all this information at our fingertips, the average consumer is left more confused than ever about which direction is right for them. One of the things that makes our program unique is our belief that it's not only important what we teach, but how we teach it.

Across industries, across continents, we know that what works to get people excited about ideas, learning and the learning process is universal. It's not about language, it's not about culture; it's about how the brain works and how people are motivated to make lasting changes.

We lay out the critical pieces that your employees need, but do it in a way that they're as engaged as possible in the process.