By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Ask employers, particularly those who run small businesses, if they have considered a corporate wellness program.

For many of them, the answer is no.

With the global spotlight focused on the recently-enacted U.S. health-care legislation, do wellness providers expect a spike in the until-now tepid interest?

Possibly.

"We have had more meetings, more discussions and more requests in the last four to five weeks than we have had in the last four to five months," said Brad Cooper, CEO of US Corporate Wellness, a national wellness provider based in Littleton, Colo.

Peggy Davis, a registered nurse with Independent Health and the director of health promotion, says while the new legislation is raising interest in wellness, there are still challenges to selling employers on the value.

"There are a few barriers that trip companies up," she said.

"There is the idea of return on investment. There are lots of vendors that will give you an ROI when they are selling you their product, but it is more than just a wellness program. It is a varying approach that will work and it is tough to tie the ROI to one single initiative."

Mindful of those concerns, Independent Health, like many health-care companies, has streamlined its approach to educating consumers and taken it online.

"We want our members to be educated and sometimes a wellness program can be as simple as a coordinated communication plan over the course of the year," Davis said.

"It doesn't have to be that traditional on-site lunch and learn to be effective," she said.

An Internet solution

One local company has transformed its entire wellness education program online.

Jody LaMarca-Lowry, a senior vice president with UniWorld Health & Wellness in Williamsville, said her company decided "a couple of years ago" to convert the traditional model to online seminars as a means of expanding to a global operation.

Companies such as UniWorld tout significantly lower costs for operating an online wellness program, while saying they see strong participation and measurable results.

LaMarca-Lowry's colleague, Bruce Brown, said it comes down to rising health-care costs and both companies and employees juggling the need to be healthy with ballooning expenses.

"What many employers - if they are aggressive - are doing is working to address these costs in some way and starting to incorporate a wellness program into their company," he said.

"What we are seeing more of is the idea that the employer and the employee share more of the health-care cost, giving the employee an incentive to participate in wellness programs and to make healthy choices," Brown said.

Philip Haberstro sees the shift to online wellness as a critical component to growing the movement. He's executive director of The Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo & WNY.

Haberstro has been active on a statewide level in the health-care reform process.

"In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, it was very difficult to reach the smaller businesses with wellness programs," according to Haberstro.

"It is very rare that you are going to see a company with less than 50 employees that has a program, or an on-site fitness room," he said. "But now, with the Internet, we can bring health promotions to any employee."

Earlier disappointments?

Haberstro said many employers may also have been turned off by a wellness program that was ineffective.

Now they are hesitant to invest money in another plan promising a strong return on investment.

"While things like a wellness fair can be a good thing, it isn't changing the culture of the organization," he said.

"From the employers' perspective, a successful worksite health promotion has to be strategic," he said.

"You have to look at everything from the policies in the organization to the environment to the vending machines and what kind of healthy choices they offer," Haberstro said.

The consensus among leading health-care providers and wellness experts is that the new health-care reform, once sorted out, understood and implemented, will drive more companies to implement workplace programs that will lead to healthier employees.

Cooper said at the end of the day, for most employers, when they are looking at health-care costs and wellness programs, it comes down to how the bottom line will be affected.

"CEOs don't wake up one day and decide they want to start a wellness program," he said.

"They wake up and say, ‘Our retention rates are brutal, our sick time is killing us and our disability costs are going through the roof.'

"That's what will drive more participation in wellness," Cooper said.