Dear Health Care Executives:

This edition of the Benefits and Wellness Bulletin (BWB) will provide new ways to inspire and invigorate your wellness programs and possibly save you dollars in all of your organizations as it pertains to wellness and benefits. We are here to help inspire you and your employees around improving your life and wellbeing.

As spring entices us to get back into shape, I hope that you are encouraging your staff and employees to do the same. Each of our wellness journeys are most effective if done with a team approach, similar to the way we are all looking at delivering patient care. Think of wellness initiatives as team building exercises, you never know, you may find something there that impacts more than the health of your organization. For new ideas use this publication to help give you some momentum around your wellness initiatives and save benefit dollars too.

ASHHRA appreciates your dedication to health care, and we will continue to improve in assisting you in the way you do your work. Please feel free to email me at sdrake@aha.org for any reason – we are here to serve you, our valued members. Just a reminder, you can read this edition of the BWB on your smart phone – to learn more, click here.

Sincerely,

Stephanie H. Drake

ASHHRA Executive Director

Two Midwest employers – one in Minnesota, the other in Illinois – learned over the course of several years how to develop successful health fairs by growing the events slowly each year and implementing suggestions from attendees. Their successes offer five sound strategies for other companies to emulate.

Being a mother is the hardest job you can have, but being a working mother, particularly in today's society, is that much harder. Trisha Parker is the owner of Peaceful Solutions Massage Therapy & Spa in Montgomery, Ala., which is an hour from her home – causing her to spend a lot of time on the road. As the mother of a 6-year-old, that is valuable time spent away from her family. While her husband is usually available to pick up her son Jack from school, Parker always feels as if she is "on call." "Jack understands that Mommy has to work, however that doesn't mean I don't feel guilty on the nights I have no choice but to work late," says Parker.

No two pharmacies are alike. According to an analysis by Consumer Reports, prescription drugs vary widely in price depending on where you shop. Failing to comparison shop could result in overpaying by as much as $100 a month or even more, depending on the drug. The consumer group says shoppers need to compare prices. Here are five other tips on how to save money on prescriptions, according to Consumer Reports.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s new president and CEO, may be a very smart person – but by our reckoning, she dropped the ball on the company’s telecommuting policy. Earlier this year, she declared an absolute ban on telecommuting at Yahoo!, raising eyebrows and hackles alike. We don’t recommend you do the same, as there are numerous benefits of telecommuting for both employers and employees.

The share of Americans who get health benefits through work dropped to 60 percent in 2011, continuing a decade-long slide that highlights the challenges facing President Barack Obama’s insurance overhaul.

Consider this situation: You have a good job with decent benefits, but you just received an offer from another company for a lateral move with the same base pay. But this new company has amazing benefits and the employees seem happy. Is it worth considering? Mike Weinholtz, CEO of CHG Healthcare Services, says that some companies see attractive benefits as a "nice to have" option. But as the head of the Salt Lake City, Utah-based business, which ranks third on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work for 2013 list, he says he sees great benefits differently.

As far as health care coverage goes, it's all about location, location, location. Large discrepancies in health insurance coverage across U.S. metro areas continued in 2012, Gallup reported Tuesday. Nearly half of adult residents living in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, metro area continue to be uninsured – about three times the national average of 16.9 percent. This makes it the U.S. metro area with the highest percentage of adults lacking health insurance for the second year in a row, according to results from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Do you seem to spend your entire day juggling the demands of your family with those of your job? You're not alone. The majority of today's workforce is made up of parents. Forward-thinking employers realize this fact and are providing these working parents with the flexibility they need to thrive on the job and at home. If your boss hasn't boarded the family-friendly bandwagon, maybe this working parents' wish list will enlighten your employer.

When the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate to stand last June, the luxury of waiting and wondering came to a screeching halt. Yet, despite the decision, some in the health care benefits space, including employers, held out hope that the ACA might be dismantled after the election should Mitt Romney prevail. When that didn't happen, most employers and health care benefit consultants realized it was time to get serious about dealing with the ACA's most controversial, and at this point confusing, component – the "public option" mandate and its corresponding health care insurance exchanges, which become effective Jan. 1, 2014 along with other related employer-related ACA provisions.

Insurance companies aren’t known for their stellar customer service. In the recent 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings, the health plan industry ranked second to last in terms of customer experience, tied with Internet service providers and just above TV service providers. The majority of those surveyed, in fact, ranked their experience with health plans as "okay" to "very poor."

A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that about 40 percent of the U.S. workforce, or more than 55 million people, don’t get any paid time off. That could change if a new bill before both houses of Congress is eventually passed. The Healthy Families Act was recently introduced by Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-CT) in the House (H.R. 1286) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) in the Senate (S.631).

Recent evidence showing women use fewer out-of-office benefits than men points to an overall and overriding point, experts say: Work/life isn't just about women and kids anymore. A March survey by the Washington-based American Psychological Association's Center for Organizational Excellence not only finds the majority of workers stressed out, stuck in their jobs, underpaid and not listened to when it comes to their non-work needs – it also finds only 37 percent of women regularly use employee benefits designed to help them meet demands outside the office, compared to 42 percent of men.

Spring is in the air, and just like that, people are packing up their wool sweaters and boots and taking out their sneakers, T-shirts and windbreakers. Now that leaving the house is no longer a chore due to the frigid air, people naturally may be ready to spend more time outside and work on their health.

The Washington, D.C., Health Benefit Exchange executive board has voted to prohibit health insurance companies from charging higher premiums to smokers and tobacco users. The April 8 vote, according to a news release, followed testimony by patient and public health advocates opposing a premium surcharge for smokers.

HealthyWage is a weight-loss initiative with an interesting twist – participants have bet their own money and stand to gain considerable payouts for losing more than other teams. That "skin in the game," company officials say, is significantly more of a motivator than the traditional incentives that employers offer with weight-loss programs. The wagered risk (and competitive nature) of betting on your own diet and exercise is seeing marked success, they report.

As hospitals look to implement employee wellness programs, they should take heed that employees lose weight more successfully under company wellness plans that incentivize group rather than individual weight loss, suggests a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

SOURCE: FIERCE HEALTHCARE

With hospitals cracking down on disruptive workers, health care leaders must be armed with information on how to handle disruptive and inappropriate behaviors. Consider the following tips to prevent unprofessional conduct from interfering with the safety and well-being of patients and staff.

Among the trends gaining much traction in the employer drive to reduce health care costs, wellness currently sits at the top of the heap. Employers large and small, desperately seeking ways to slow rising health care costs, are more and more trying wellness programs to create healthier workforces, with the idea that healthier employees will logically result in lower costs across the board.

Corporate wellness programs have become a cause celebre of the cost-saving era in health care. Everyone has started using employee wellness plans and there are plenty of ways to try them. But there’s one catch: few corporate wellness solutions are saving money. ’We probably shouldn’t think of wellness programs as cost-savers, at least not in the short-term,’ says Gautam Gowrisankaran, a professor of economics at the University of Arizona. He recently completed a study of a large wellness program at a major hospital in St. Louis, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs. While the program did seem to change the way that employees accessed health care, it did not produce savings for the hospital system, BJC Healthcare.

Given the prevalence and dangers of career burnout among physicians, a new study from Medscape examined the ways life outside a physician's practice related to his or her professional stress. When looking at rates of physician-reported burnout overall, the results were discouraging, with nearly 40 percent of the respondents reported being burned out. Furthermore, those who felt burned out also said they were less confident about their physical health than their less-stressed colleagues.

Being healthy is one way that you can help increase your quality of life. While genetics play some role in your overall health and well being, your lifestyle plays significantly more. If you want to live a long and productive life to see your children and grandchildren grow up then you need to start by getting healthy now.

HR managers and leaders across the country are gathering together in meetings large and small, sharing ideas and concerns, and trying to understand the intricacies and impacts of health care reform on their organizations. There are the immediate and highly publicized changes that went into effect on January 1, 2013, but there’s a slew of additional ones coming down the pike over the next several months (and years) including everything from health insurance exchanges to mandated coverage to Medicaid expansion to new taxes on high-end plans, and more.

The link between health and employee productivity is becoming increasingly clear; however, only a minority of employers make this connection within their health and wellbeing programs, according to a survey from Towers Watson.

Today we tend to spend a lot of time at work, and no matter how dedicated and committed we are to fulfilling our duties in the pursuit of professional growth and career development, we should always keep in mind that life is beautiful and versatile and we shouldn't deprive ourselves of the great art of living a meaningful and joyful life! In order to be happy at work, one needs to find a fine balance between professional and private life, mundane routine and favorite hobbies, forced politeness and the luxury of being surrounded by real soulmates.

A Michigan study found that cash rewards can be great incentives for improved employee health habits. However, researchers add that the recipe for success includes one important ingredient: competition from workers' peers.

Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth – there is not one corporation that cares about its workers’ health. If gorging on quadruple-patty burgers topped with mounds of bacon and cheese were shown to bolster productivity and engagement, then companies would be serving McFat platters daily for lunch. If growing waistlines were to yield growing profits, then every business would encourage workers to partake in a corporate un-wellness program.

The use of gamification, social networking and mobile technology reveals employers’ commitment to using new technologies for promoting health engagement among employees and achieving desired employee behavior changes.

Employer wellness programs used to mean just having a gym in the office or posters on the wall encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Now more companies are using real money, and sometimes penalties, as incentives for workers to get in better shape.

A new survey from Buck Consultants, a global human resources and employment consulting firm, shows that Southeast employers are lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to employee wellness programs.

While hospital nutrition and food service employees aren't directly involved in patient care, what they do and what they serve has a direct, beneficial and healthy impact on patients. Good nutrition plays a major role in not only staying healthy, but also recovery from a medical procedure, injury, or illness.