Posts Tagged ‘Hewitt Associates’
Slowdown hits on-site clinics
Employment-based health clinics are the latest casualty of the ongoing recession, as corporations push off plans to open on-site and near-site clinics and some existing clinics are being considered for the chopping block, industry experts said.
On-site and near-site clinics have become a hot emerging trend among large employers—especially the self-insured—as a way to reduce healthcare costs and improve worker productivity. These clinics typically offer primary-care, pharmacy and preventive services to employees and their families at the work site. Some offer radiology, vision and dental care and laboratory services as well. But leading benefits consulting firms that work with employers on planning and implementing these clinics say corporations are hitting the brakes as they seek ways to immediately cut costs.
A healthy workplace
Your bosses aren’t serving you chicken soup just yet, but during this open enrollment season you’ll find they’re taking other creative steps to make sure you don’t get sick.
They might bribe you with gift cards or cash so you fill out a questionnaire to assess your health risks. They might pick up the full cost of certain prescription drugs to make sure you stay on them. Some large employers are even adding on-site medical clinics to make it easy for workers to visit a doctor or fill a prescription.
This push toward preventive care isn’t the only trend you’ll see during open enrollment. As in past years, you can probably count on higher premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. Benefits consultant Hewitt Associates predicts the average employee will see annual health care costs go up to $3,826, an 8 percent increase from a year ago.
Medical care made quick for workers downtown
Several large employers in downtown Akron are hoping they’ve found a cure for at least some cases of absenteeism and rising health costs for their workers.
On Oct. 6, CVS Caremark is opening a MinuteClinic walk-in medical practice and a retail pharmacy inside the FirstMerit Tower building on South Main Street.
The MinuteClinic and CarePlus CVS Pharmacy will be open to the public but will cater to workers at Akron-based employers who belong to a group called Employers Health Purchasing Corp. of Ohio (EHPCO).
Many of the business coalition’s members–including at least five employers headquartered in downtown Akron–use CVS Caremark to manage pharmacy benefits for their employees.
Hewitt Survey Reveals Which Health Programs Most Utilized by Employees, Most Valued by Employers
Despite relatively low employer adoption, onsite health services are not only highly utilized by employees, but also are the programs employers believed best achieved their intended results relative to other programs aimed at improving employee health and productivity, according to a new survey by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company.
Hewitt’s survey of 248 large and mid-size companies found that companies are continuing to invest in the health and productivity of their employees by offering a variety of health-related programs that address the spectrum of health risk—from the healthy to the chronically ill. While just one in five (19 percent) companies offered onsite medical clinics and 11 percent offered onsite pharmacy services, a quarter of employees (25 percent) used onsite medical clinics when they were made available to them, and 50 percent took advantage of onsite pharmacies. Further, 81 percent of companies that offered onsite clinics said they were satisfied with the results they achieved from the programs, and 95 percent were satisfied with onsite pharmacies.
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