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Using a Health Risk Assessment as a Guide is the Key to Saving up to $648 per Beneficiary Annually

Wellness programs aimed at retirees can reduce individual healthcare costs by hundreds of dollars a year, according to a study from Thomson Medstat. Healthcare costs were found to be between $101 and $648 less per year for Medicare recipients who participated in employer-sponsored wellness programs that involved the use of a health risk assessment.

"The study, we've found evidence that strategic healthcare interventions can improve senior citizens' health and reduce healthcare costs. This is significant for employers, the Medicare system, and other organizations that are struggling to cope with the spiraling cost of retiree healthcare," said lead author Ron Ozminkowski, Ph.D., director of health and productivity research at Thomson Medstat. The research was sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The study estimates the healthcare cost savings associated with wellness programs offered to 59,324 retirees from a large employer and their aged dependents. Researchers assessed study participants' use of healthcare services from 1996 through 2002.

The guiding force for a successful wellness program is the health risk assessment (HRA) – which measures critical health factors and assesses the health status of individual participants, according to the study. The Thomson Medstat study found that using the HRA as a guide for subsequent services to retirees yielded hundreds of dollars in additional savings, much more than would have accrued without first completing the HRA.

Those who participated in the health risk assessment plus one other program element – such as telephone-based lifestyle management counseling or on-site medical screenings – had average annual savings of $442. Using the health risk assessment with two additional elements resulted in annual savings of $569. In contrast, using such services without guidance from the HRA yielded savings of only about $30 per year, suggesting that knowledge obtained from the HRA may have focused retirees on the health promotion programs that were best suited to them.

The analysis accounted for the confounding impacts of age, gender, job type, location, health status, and total payments observed in the first year. Through further statistical testing, the study found that various lifestyle factors could increase the cost savings to $648 per beneficiary.

By removing all outlier medical costs from the analysis, researchers saw a lower cost savings of $101 per beneficiary.

"As the American population ages, preventing or postponing the onset of chronic disease has become a crucial public health issue – for both senior citizens and the organizations providing their health insurance," said Ozminkowski.

The study was published in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Thomson Medstat develops solutions – including business intelligence and benchmark databases, decision support solutions, and research services – to help employers, government agencies, health plans, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies manage the cost and quality of healthcare.

For more information on Thomson Medstat, visit www.medstat.com.