The document discusses how rising healthcare costs are negatively impacting business profits and recommends that companies treat healthcare benefits like a major business objective. It promotes the strategy of population health management, which uses data analytics to identify high-risk employees, develop health improvement plans, and partner with employees and providers to implement initiatives that can save companies millions annually through reduced claims costs and an overall healthier workforce. Adopting this approach treats employee health as a business decision that is critical to achieving strategic corporate goals.

1. Healthcare benefits and initiatives can cost – or save – your company
millions of dollars. Here’s how to give your company the leading edge
on today’s health and wellness business strategy.
Employee Health is a Business Decision
You may think healthcare benefits and wellness initiatives aren’t an issue for the C-suite.
$61.2 billion says think again.
According to a global leader in human resource solutions, that’s the amount 516 large employers
spend annually on health care benefits for employees and their dependents.
As the alarming escalation of healthcare costs continues to ravage business profitability,
what was once exclusively a human resources issue is now a hot topic in the executive suite.
How can executives impact and control the cost of healthcare benefits? By treating it
like any other major business objective.
Why the impact of benefits and wellness
on profit margin is the hot topic in board rooms across the U.S.
Healthcare and the CEO
Inside:
How the Traditional Benefits
Continuum Kills Profitability
The 3 Options for Attacking
the Costs of Claims
How (and Why) Population
Health Management
(PHM) Works
Conclusion
About Engauge
Our three-step process
Sources
www.engauge4health.com

2. How the Traditional Benefits Continuum
Kills Profitability
For decades, businesses have relied on health insurance brokers
to work with human resources to develop competitive benefits
packages for the company and its employees. The employee would
pick a plan, manage their healthcare, and the company would pay
the premiums for any doctor’s visits, prescription drugs and ER visits
– no questions asked.
But today’s businesses are starting to ask…
“How are these healthcare dollars
really being spent — and how do we reduce the costs
for the business and our employees?”
The health of a corporate
community is a critical
component of that business
successfully achieving
its strategic objectives.
The 3 Options
for Attacking the Costs of Claims
Companies are fighting the rising costs of healthcare with various
tactics – but which ones are most effective for long-term viability
and profitability?
Cost-shifting is reworking benefit design or employee contributions
(sometimes both) to reduce cost to employers while increasing
employee contributions. While this option may provide some
immediate relief to corporate budgets, it has a minimal impact
on the overall profit margin. Additionally, these increases place an
enormous financial burden on employees and their families without
addressing the costs of claims.
Wellness programs offer educational and on-site support to
employees in an effort to improve overall health in the hopes it will
reduce claim costs. While some employees may lose weight or stop
smoking by participating in wellness initiatives, the impact on claim
costs is negligible.
Population health management is a data-driven analytics platform
that integrates multiple streams of health data on employer popula-
tions, develops a strategy to improve the health of the population,
then works with employees and providers to implement the plan –
resulting in dramatically reduced claim costs for the employer, lower
out-of-pocket costs for members, and better health for its employees.
A recent study of
a 2,400-employee organization
reports the group saved
$1.6 million in just two years
through strategic population
health management.
How (and Why) Population
Health Management (PHM) Works:
Done well, a population health management (PHM) program is
a breakthrough strategy that can save a company millions of dollars.
It’s a fact: the wellness of your employees has an enormous impact
on the profitability of your business.
So how exactly does PHM fit into overall scheme of your business?
PHM companies work with executives and human resource leaders
to develop strategic health plans for companies based on measura-
ble and quantifiable data. They identify high-risk employees,
then work with that population and their providers to reduce claims,
increase profitability, and improve the health of at-risk employees.
Until now, the claims driving up the cost of benefits are rarely –
if ever – scrutinized. But the fact is for every single dollar spent
on health care benefits, a whopping $.72 is spent on the treatment
of preventable conditions like diabetes, smoking-related health
conditions and heart disease.
For decades, traditional health care benefits approaches screened
the low-claimant population and performed reactive disease manage-
ment with the high-claimant population. When high-cost claimants
are determined annually, only 30 percent were high-claimants
the year before — which means 70 percent of the population
becomes high-claimant annually because their risk was undetected
through traditional wellness and disease management.

3. www.engauge4health.com
Improving the health of employees with these conditions, along
with identifying employees at high-risk of developing these conditions,
is the key to improving profitability by reducing healthcare costs.
For example, if a business with 1,100 members spends $6.7 million
annually has a population of 583 with common health risks
like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, the company is spending
$5.5 million – 82% of its total health expenditures – for only 53%
of its employees. The other 47%? They’re managing their health
and costing only $1.2 million per year.
Now, imagine if this business strategically identifies the higher-risk
employees through HIPAA-compliant technology, determines a course
of action to improve health outcomes, then transforms the lives
of your employees through provider/employee education and action.
Decreasing medical and pharmaceutical claims and hospital
admissions by 10% is a cost savings of $670,000 per year. Reduce
it by 5%? You’re looking at a cost-savings of $335,000 per year.
According to the Washington
Post, the average ER visit
costs more than
the average month’s rent.
Conclusion
One of the significant reasons for the alarming rise in healthcare
costs are high-risk employees not receiving the intervention, informa-
tion and proper medical care they need to take control of improving
their health. Leading companies like Dow Chemical, Viking Range
Corporation, and The Men’s Warehouse, are recognizing that tying
critical corporate objectives to the health of its employees is key
to successfully reaching its goals and are investing accordingly.
Scrutinizing benefits and claim expenditures, then identifying key
areas of improvement through data-driven analysis, is critical
to successfully improving profitability by decreasing healthcare
expenditures. Recognizing the success of corporate goals and
priorities are tied directly to healthcare management, competitive
businesses are utilizing the actionable data and strategies of PHM
to reduce healthcare spending while improving the wellness
of their top asset: their employees.
They get healthier. You save
money. It’s that simple.
About Engauge
Engauge is a population health management solution that helps busi-
nesses manage healthcare costs by creating healthier organizations.
Engauge uses cutting-edge technology to integrate data, determine
where an organization is on the healthcare continuum, then engages
employees and providers to get real, measurable results.
Our three-step process:
• Analyze (descriptive analytics)
• Strategize (prescriptive analytics)
• Transform (predictive analytics)
First, we gather and analyze data with HIPAA-compliant technology
that creates a clear picture of the health of your employees.
Medical and pharmacy claims, biometric screenings and self-reported
data are all unified into one report to provide a clear blueprint
of the health of your organization.
Next, we strategize and define real business solutions for your
company through prescriptive analytics. Engauge helps you clearly
see where your employees are on the care continuum, identifies
high-risk employees, and determines the best course of action
to close gaps in care.
Then we transform the lives of your employees – and your business –
by educating employees and providers with real, actionable steps
to improving health. We even provide predictive analytics, allowing
providers and employees to take action before they become
high-risk. This translates to fewer medical and pharmaceutical
claims, decreased hospital admissions and significant reductions
in per-employee costs.
The result? Better health for your workforce,
and a better bottom-line for your business.
Sources
Forbes, Jaspen, Bruce; “Workers Share of Health Care
Costs Nearly $5,000 at Large Companies.”
NavigatorMD; case study, 2014. Printed with permission.

4. Get Healthy. Save Money.
Contact Engauge Population Health Management today:
www.engauge4health.com or call 404-316-2137.
Give us 30 days and we’ll give you a road map to a healthier workforce – risk-free.
"Our health care approach is reactive,
as a result, we have a world of chronic
disease, most of which are poorly managed,
such as congestive heart failure, high blood
pressure and diabetes.”
"Now comes a new wave of technology to
not only improve the outlook for the chronic
diseases of today but shift the capability,
for the first time, to true prevention."
Eric Topol M.D
One of the top ten researchers in medicine