Health Care Costs for Employers Are Much More than Just Claims

A 2009 study by researchers from Alere, the Integrated Benefits Institute, and Harvard Medical School looked at the “full-cost” of health care by combining the actual cost of medical care with the cost of lost employee productivity in 10 companies and 51,648 employees who had a combined 1,134,281 medical and pharmacy claims.

Health related productivity costs were 2.3 times the claims cost.

The most important causes of lost productivity were chronic conditions including: depression and anxiety, arthritis, back and neck pain, and obesity.

Executives and managers had as much or more dollar cost in lost productivity as laborers and operators.

The authors note that “A strong link exists between health and productivity.” In fact, we at IntegerHealth define a good outcome of health care as return to normal job function as quickly and as cost effectively as possible.

Reference: Ronald Loeppke, et. al., “Health and Productivity as a Business Strategy: A Multiemployer Study,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 51, No. 4, Pages 411-428 (April 2009).

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IntegerHealth uses advanced data analytics to help self-insured employers decrease the costs of their healthcare plans and workers’ comp programs, while improving the care that their employees receive, and getting them back to work faster. If you think that we can help you, please contact our President, Scott Roloff, at (817) 849-9402 or [email protected].