Lost productivity more than doubles medical costs
Worker health: billions in the balance
Employee health conditions have impact far beyond medical and pharmacy costs, yet for several years those areas have been the primary focus of cost-savings efforts tied to prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, the authors emphasize.
Their research found that health-related lost productivity (absenteeism and presenteeism) are costs employers cannot ignore. At an aggregate population level across the 25 health conditions assessed in the study the results show that on average, for every 1 dollar of medical and pharmacy costs there are 2.3 dollars of health-related productivity costs in lost work time from absenteeism and presenteeism. Employers need to explore new ways of integrating absence and presenteeism data into their current data collection and evaluation strategies, they argue.
To explore methodological refinements in measuring health-related lost productivity and to assess the business implications of a full-cost approach to managing health, they gleaned results from 51,648 employee respondents using the Health and Work Performance Questionnaire. They also analyzed 1.1 million medical and pharmacy claims.
Regression analyses were used to estimate the associations of health conditions with absenteeism and presenteeism using a range of models.
Chronic conditions such as depression/anxiety, obesity, arthritis, and back/neck pain are especially important causes of productivity loss, they found. Executives/Managers experience as much or more monetized productivity loss from depression and back pain as Laborers/Operators.
Employers are the ultimate purchasers of health care for the majority of Americans, spending approximately $13,000 per employee per year on total direct and indirect health-related costs," the authors conclude." Although many employers now are concerned about workforce health, their efforts to address this problem have tended to focus on medical costs without considering the impact of health on workforce productivity."
With health care costs skyrocketing, health promotion and health protection measures aimed at the nation's workforce could have significant long-term impact, potentially saving billions in costs, they conclude.
Reference
1. Loeppke R, Taitel M, Haufle V, et al. Health and Productivity as a Business Strategy: A Multiemployer Study. J Occup Environ Med. 2009;51:411-428.
Employee health conditions have impact far beyond medical and pharmacy costs, yet for several years those areas have been the primary focus of cost-savings efforts tied to prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, the authors emphasize.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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