Employees back corporate wellness plans, but not penalties: Survey
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The overwhelming majority of employees back corporate wellness plan designs that give plan enrollees incentives to improve health, but plan designs that require participants to pay more for coverage if they don't meet certain health goals are much less popular, according to a new survey.
More than 80% of employees endorse wellness plan designs providing financial rewards to those meeting goals, but just 29% favor designs in which employees have to pay more if stated health goals are not met, according to the National Business Group on Health survey of more than 1,500 employees conducted between late May and early June.
“You can give (employees) more, but not take away,” said NBGH President Helen Darling at a briefing Thursday in Washington, where the survey was released.
Even as employers have cut back benefits due to escalating costs, the level of employee satisfaction with their coverage is high. More than 60% of respondents reported they were satisfied with their health care plans, with 30% somewhat satisfied and 7% not satisfied
Many employees, though, don't know or vastly underestimate the cost of their coverage. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they didn't know how much their coverage costs, while 23% estimated that the cost was less than $500 per month.
According to a Towers Watson Co. survey, the average per-employee cost in 2012 for employers is nearly $9,000.
