Use this checklist for cost/benefit analysis
Below are key pieces of data you should include when presenting senior management with a cost/benefit analysis, recommends Tamara Y. Blow, manager of occupational health services at Philip Morris USA:
- Medical surveillance exams. Include the cost of providing onsite preplacement physicals, respiratory physicals, and forklift vision and laser eye exams as opposed to sending an employee to an offsite contractor. "Don't forget to include the time the employee is away from work to go to an off-site contractor," says Blow. "That translates into dollars."
- Clinic visits for occupational injuries. Compute the cost savings of providing care on site instead of sending employees to an emergency department.
- Wellness visits. Show the cost savings of early screenings and interventions as opposed to an employee being undiagnosed and treated. "An employee with undiagnosed hypertension is a time bomb waiting to happen," says Blow. "If just one employee sustains frequent hospitalizations for a heart attack, a kidney transplant, or stroke, it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars."
- Emergency visits. Include data regarding the type of visit, to identify trends and to implement interventions.
- Short-term disability. Measure the cost savings of returning an employee back to work sooner than stated by the employee's physician or national normative disability guidelines.
- Data on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Collect data to show which days of the week employees are absent to determine patterns of abuse. Show management that decreasing the incident rate of intermittent FMLA absences can be accomplished by questioning employees regarding patterns of abuse.
- Long-term disability. Supply data regarding why employees are on long-term disability, and strategically plan wellness initiatives to decrease usage.
- Employee Assistance Program. "Use this data to identify workforce trends and to target interventions," says Blow.
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