Employers continue to be saddled with high healthcare costs for their workforce.  The average per-person expenditure is now over $11,000, an increase of 38% from just five years ago, according to the 2011 Towers Watson/NBGH survey.

Survey respondents have consistently stated that employees' poor health habits are the #1 challenge fo maintaining affordable health beneit coverage.  They had also nted that companies are frustrated with low levels of employee engagement.  The result is that US businesses are suffering from higher costs and lost worker productivity, leading to diminshed profitability. 

Employees' lack of interest to participate in health and well-being programs is the biggest obstacle to changing health behaviors.

To counter this reluctance, the industry has increasingly turned to incentives as a way to stimulate participation.  Some 58% of employers offeringed cash, premium credits and/or account contributions to their employees to encourage healthy lifestyle choices in 2011.

We believe this is a short-term fix to a long-problem and it is not sustainable.

At Healthcentric Partners, our approach is to create and activate sustainable engagement strategies and solutions that encourage active participation in health and well-being improvement activites - and deliver measurable outcomes.