The following guest post was submitted by Gary Anderberg, Phd, the Practice Leader For Outcomes and Analytics at Broadspire.
I was participating in a recent meeting of health, wellness, workers’ compensation and disability professionals. One of the issues on the table was information that the regs defining “Cadillac” plans may loop the cost of wellness programs, disease management and other health related productivity benefits into the total cost of the employer’s health plan for purposes of assessing penalties. If this intelligence is correct and if such provisions become effective, most large employer plans, so defined, will be subject to potentially expensive penalties, thus strongly incenting employers to relegate employee health care to the soon to be created exchanges.
This question stirred up a wide ranging discussion of how to frame the value of health and productivity programs for employers. For the last several years, most of the players in this space have been using the “investment” and “ROI” model, telling employers that they will reap rewards for astute investments in employee health and productivity. As a practical matter, returns on investment have been problematic to quantify. There is broad, intuitive agreement that a healthier workforce is a good thing, but what does it drive to the bottom line?
I suggested a different model — risk management. If trained, knowledgeable, productive employees are indeed a corporate asset — like trucks, buildings, airplanes, equipment, and so forth — then the health and well being of those employees presents a major risk exposure for the corporation in very immediate terms. We know that as the overall well being of a workforce declines, not only do absences of all types go up, but so do opportunity costs and the costs of poor performance and decision making. As absence rates and disability claims climb, more positions are filled by new employees with less experience and training than the absent workers. Mistakes get made, customers do not get the service they expect, and product quality suffers.
I suggested that, properly viewed, health plans, chronic disease programs and all types of effective wellness programs are really risk management tools in much the same way that fleet maintenance is a risk management tool. We assume that companies will maintain their eighteen wheelers and provide safety courses for their drivers, but the health and well being of the person behind the wheel is equally critical to the company’s risk exposure when a truck is on the road.
Every time a company hires a new employee, it takes on a new risk. For every employee on the payroll, from the CEO on down, there is a definite risk cost of employment which is based in large part on that person’s health and well being. So, are health, wellness and productivity programs investments with uncertain returns or are they critical risk management tools which allow the employer an important measure of control over the performance of a key asset — employees? It seems to me that these tools are vital to controlling employment costs and critical parameters of product and service delivery, especially in a world of very lean staffing and just in time management.
To my mind this is not just a question of which metaphor to use. Managing risk is real and the consequences of poor risk management are often dramatic and even tragic. I wonder how many companies would consider handing over the maintenance of their critical manufacturing and distribution equipment to a government program just to save a few bucks. But how many employers may be tempted to do the same thing if the soon to be created healthcare exchanges offer a short term dollar saving?
The words we use to frame decisions can carry massive consequences. If you think about the health and well being of your employees as a risk exposure to be effectively managed to minimize replacement costs and the expense of suboptimal performance and errors, what might you do differently? Think about it.
Posts Tagged ‘Gary Anderberg’
A Question of Language?
Monday, July 19th, 2010Healthcare Reform and Workers Compensation
Monday, June 14th, 2010In the the following guest post, Gary Anderberg, Phd, the Practice Leader For Outcomes and Analytics at Broadspire offers his thoughts on the potential impact of healthcare reform on workers comp in the coming years.
At the moment, health care reform appears to have a number of positive and negative potential impacts on workers compensation over the next few years. The net results cannot be estimated this early in the game. We can, however, identify a few elements and their possible consequences:
- Insuring the now uninsured: Positive — employees who have health insurance tend to file fewer workers compensation claims. They have less incentive to cost shift. Another result will be that chronic medical conditions will be, over time, better controlled and less likely to increase the severity of work related claims.
- Availability of care: Negative — with a large number of people having new health coverage, doctors and facilities may be swamped in some areas. The problem will lead to (a) delays in appointments for workers compensation-related medical treatments and (b) less willingness by providers to participate in occupational medical networks and offer discounts off fee schedules.
- Removing the pre-existing exclusion: Unknown — in 2014 the pre-existing exclusion will disappear in group health. This cuts several ways at once. There will be less incentive for employees to claim long standing “wear and tear” conditions as work related – a positive change. There may also be much greater demand on employers for workplace and job accommodations leading to new exposures and safety issues.
- Medicare reform: Negative — the passage of HR 3590 was predicated on massive adjustments in Medicare reimbursement levels, which are marginal for medical providers now. This will pressure providers, especially hospitals and some specialists, to cost shift where possible and workers compensation is a soft target in most states. We could see significant increases in medical costs per claim as the Medicare changes begin to bite in a couple of years. (The recession-driven cutbacks in state Medicaid reimbursements will only amplify this effect in the near term.)
- Libby care: Unknown — the “Libby care” clause of HR 3590 (sec 1881A) is not intended to lead to the federalization of industrial diseases absent some very specific catastrophic circumstances comparable to those of the WR Grace disaster in Libby, MT. But we all know that ERISA was intended to address a very narrow set of union pension abuses when it was passed, but the Department of Labor, abetted by the Florida Administrators decision of the Supreme Court in 1977, expanded it greatly. The Libby care provision will bear watching.
Workers compensation was not at the table when Congress hammered out its health care reform solutions. Other than a few glancing mentions, such as the Libby care clause noted above, occupational medicine was overlooked and, by default, left to the states. This is probably a good thing, on balance. Yet, as health care reform changes begin to penetrate the enormous US health care enterprise, they will impact workers compensation in many overt and subtle ways over the next several years. Carriers, third party administrators, and managed care vendors will need to be alert to capture possible advantages and avoid potential nasty surprises.
