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Fiscally fit
Juli Gomez always wanted a healthier lifestyle but had a hard time getting motivated.
Now, working out and eating healthier are putting money in her pocket.
Gomez's employer, Sabre Holdings Corp. in Southlake, Texas, recently began offering $10 monthly discounts on health insurance premiums to employees who participate in the travel technology firm's wellness program. There's an extra $10-a-month discount if employees' spouses participate.
Rafael Aronovich runs on the treadmill as Erin Bouck does leg lifts at the company
gym of Sabre Holdings in Southlake, Texas. Sabre's wellness program has helped hold
down annual increases in health care costs.
As part of a strategy to rein in ballooning health care expenses, more employers are offering discounts on health insurance to workers who participate in wellness programs.
Healthy habits make economic sense for everybody, executives say, and could be a matter of survival for some companies struggling under the burden of medical costs.
At Sabre, the wellness program has helped hold annual increases in health care costs to about 1 percent -- compared with 9 percent nationwide last year.
"The savings we experienced went straight to our bottom line, since we are self-insured," said Lynn Swaim, Sabre's vice president of employee benefits. Higher profits mean better employee bonuses, she added.
Free money for strapped employees? Not entirely.
Even as they offer discounts on health insurance plans, many employers are jacking up overall premiums. The national trend is to shift a greater share of total costs to employees.
At Sabre, even employees who qualify for discounts saw their insurance premiums rise by about 5 percent from last year, although that often amounts to just a few dollars more per month, Swaim said.
Many companies offering wellness discounts work with Matria Healthcare Inc., a firm based in Marietta, that specializes in disease management programs.
"One has to be able to demonstrate how spending money on wellness is an investment that will bring a return, not a sunk cost," said David Michel, president of MatriaWellCare Dallas, a division of Matria Healthcare.
When Matria works with a company, it first looks at employees' risk factors, including high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, poor fitness, bad eating habits and smoking habits. Extra attention goes to chronic conditions -- such as diabetes, asthma and cardiovascular problems -- which account for a huge share of total costs.
Then come incentives to encourage greater physical activity, healthier diets and preventive medicine, including annual physicals.
"If you can lower the risk factors by even a small percentage, then all of a sudden, that dollar you spent on wellness has turned into three or four dollars," Michel said.
