Wellness Programs and In-House Care: How Hospitals Can Lower Employee Health Coverage Costs

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Hospitals, under unprecedented pressure to control costs, are taking a hard look at their escalating budgets for employee health care benefits, which have been rising faster than in most other industries.

For a variety of reasons, the industry has not moved as quickly as others to manage health care costs and trends. As a result, many hospitals provide more services and pay a greater share of per-employee cost for benefits than other organizations. And, in a somewhat ironic twist, they also tend to have less healthy workforces, so employee use of health plan services (often at competing facilities) is frequently higher as well.

Adding to hospitals' concerns is uncertainty about how health care reform legislation will affect their cost structure as penalties for inefficiencies and overly rich plans take effect over the next few years. With reform likely to lower hospital revenues at the same time it affects costs for employee health care benefits, reducing those costs has become more critical than ever.

This article discusses core strategies hospitals can use, individually and in tandem, to lower employee health coverage costs.

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