Lifestyle Choices Account for 87.5% of Healthcare Claim Costs

“Individual behavior is highly modifiable-and is responsible for the lion’s share of health status and associated costs. An individual’s lifestyle choices-smoking, nutrition, weight, exercise and stress management-are responsible for approximately 40% of one’s health status and 87.5% of healthcare claim costs. Clearly an opportunity exists to reduce healthcare spending by motivating healthier behaviors and lifestyle choices.” (S.A. Schroeder in the NE Journal of Medicine and the IPFW Study of 2006). 

With statistics like this, it is imperative that an employer takes a proactive position and incorporate wellness coaching into the company benefit program. “As part of an integrated solution, health coaching offers a much needed resource that not only helps manage rising healthcare costs, but it also provides employees with a value-added benefit that can enhance their job satisfaction and productivity. Health coaching contributes to an overall culture of wellness, engaging employees and helping them feel as though the company has made a true investment in their health and well-being”, according to WebMD’s White Paper.

The key components of wellness coaching are identifying risks, building trust between the coach and the participant, motivational interviewing techniques, goal setting, development of a personalized plan to achieve these goals, education and direction to appropriate resources to aid in working toward achievement of the goals. 

Coaching can be a choice of several different methods or a combination of one or more. Available services can include on-site, telephonic, or web based coaching. 

There is limited research on the benefits of on-site vs. telephonic coaching. On-site affords the opportunity of putting a face to a name and providing formal or spontaneous teaching opportunities. It can also be a good time to do blood pressure and weight -ins. On the down side, on-site requires a greater staffing issue and may be cost prohibitive to many companies. Also, if the coaching space is not located in a desirable location, there can be issues of confidentiality. 

Telephonic coaching can be more flexible for scheduling time for sessions and provides the ability for reaching far more people. In our experience, our coaches like the on-site for the face-to-name benefit, but participants tend to be more guarded. They feel that the participants are more “candid” on the telephone. 

There is also a segment of the population that prefers communicating strictly by the internet. This method is convenient for individuals who do not have the freedom to talk to the coach during the work day and have busy evening schedules. They can communicate with the coach at any hour of the day or night via email. 

Coaching success is not based upon the method, on-site, telephonic, or web based, but is predicated on individuals making good choices. The Health and Wellness Coach will work with the individual to reduce health risks and promote prevention. Corporations should see the benefits by a reduction of claim costs over time.