Arkansas Blue Cross and Arkansas Dept. of Health employees square off during a walk on National Employee Fitness Day.
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It’s not that Becky Kossover had bad eating and exercise habits. She ate reasonably well and exercised fairly regularly. But now Kossover, the BreastCare program contract and accounts manager for the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH), makes sure she eats healthy foods and exercises at least 30 minutes every day. She has a compelling new incentive: earning more time off to be with her grandchildren.
Kossover is participating in a program called the Arkansas Healthy Lifestyle Program (AHELP), which offers rewards such as time off for healthy lifestyle activities.
“You get points for all these good things like eating more healthy foods and exercising,” Kossover said. “For example, you get up to nine points for eating vegetables and fruits. You get five points free every day for not being a smoker. What the program has done is encourage me to do more. I always did something, but now I try to do at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise everyday and some days more than that. It just makes me more conscious of what I’m doing. I’ve improved my flexibility and strength. I’m just really religious now about entering it every day. I keep up with it very carefully. I think that is the key.”
The other reward is feeling increased energy. Kossover said as she has gotten older, it is harder to maintain a healthy weight and preserve strength. The AHELP program helps her on both of those issues.
State employees became eligible for the AHELP program in November after a pilot program developed and conducted by the former Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) over the last few years proved to be successful in helping those workers improve their eating habits and increase their level of physical activity.
Participants in AHELP can receive three points per day for doing 30 minutes of cardiovascular physical activity. Each participant can earn additional points for minutes of physical activity above the 30 minutes per day. About 90 minutes daily is recommended for weight loss. The AHELP program also gives points for age-appropriate health screenings each year.
John Selig, director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said the pilot program resulted in almost a thousand people receiving between one hour and three days in earned time off from work. Selig said while making lifestyle changes is not easy, the results show. Employees are in better shape, and they feel better for it.
Arkansas state employees, through their employee benefits plan, have access to smoking cessation and weight loss programs. Participants can also go through a comprehensive health risk assessment to help start them on the path to better managing their own health, said Rhonda Jaster, research associate with the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI).
“We have seen increased numbers enrolled in wellness programs like weight management and tobacco cessation,” Jaster said. “It is creating an entire culture of wellness across the state. And as benefits administrators for the state employees and public employees, we take the responsibility of improving the health of Arkansans very seriously.”
ACHI identifies five behaviors that have major impacts on health: weight (body mass index), physical activity, safety belt use, alcohol use and tobacco use. Members voluntarily report their status for the five behaviors. Participants who have one of the top three unhealthy behaviors — tobacco use, obesity or physical inactivity — have average pharmacy costs $1,000 per year higher that those who don’t report those behaviors.
“Subsequently, someone who has identified with all three can see over $1,500 in excess healthcare costs to our plan,” Jaster said. “Those are areas we looked at for offering resources to move members back to low- or no-risk status, thereby having less or no medical pharmacy costs.”
Businesses have a major stake in employees’ wellness. In addition to reducing healthcare costs, wellness increases productivity and reduces sick leave days.
“Many businesses in the state are implementing similar wellness programs,” she said. “There is a real knowledge base growing among Arkansas employers about the need for a health and wellness culture in their organization. I think you will see over next few years a steady increase in wellness programs across the state.”
For the past several years, ADH has been involved with businesses through its Hometown Health Coalition to raise awareness of the benefits of worksite wellness and help businesses start worksite wellness programs.
“We have done trainings around the state and have had staff make presentations to human resource associations in the state,” said Becky Adams, associate branch chief, Lifestage Health Branch, ADH. “I think rising healthcare costs are contributing to the interest in worksite wellness. Worksite wellness has been around long enough to show that the return on investment for worksite wellness is very good. It reduces sick days and increases productivity. We have rising health costs, and worksite wellness has been shown to work.”
When Adams started working on worksite wellness in 1994, her job was to talk to businesses about why they should do worksite wellness programs. Now she doesn’t have to talk as much about why, but how.
One of the leaders in worksite wellness is Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS), a company with an inherent incentive to keep healthcare costs down. Becky Fortenbury, RN, supervisor of health improvement for Arkansas BCBS, said both its 2,500 employees and members covered by BCBS have access to wellness programs.
“Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield has experienced 50 percent or greater participation in the Wellness Works activities such as the Arkansas Fitness Challenge, which has shown consistent outcomes of increasing physical activity; lowering weight, blood sugar and blood pressure; and increasing employee satisfaction,” Fortenbury said. “The company has seen other measurable outcomes from the Wellness Works programs such as a decrease in workers’ compensation claims and decrease in short-term disability.”
BCBS’s workplace wellness initiatives include Lunch and Learn sessions on various health topics, an on-site fitness facility at the main office and fitness equipment in all locations, and a Fitness Fair each year that includes representatives from all major health organizations such as the American Heart Association and vendors for fitness equipment and clothing.
The company sends employees daily e-mail Wellness Tips including healthy recipes and offers healthy choices in the on-site cafeteria and in vending machines. It also provides a smoke-free work environment and on-site health screening assessment and testing for cholesterol, glucose, height and weight, and blood pressure with an individual written report of results and an improvement action plan every two years.
January 2008
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