Byline: JULIA PRODIS - Associated Press
If enough smokers, heavy drinkers and couch potatoes improve their health habits, a company's health care costs can plummet, according to nine years' worth of study at one manufacturer.
Workers at furniture maker Steelcase in Grand Rapids, Mich., who have taken advantage of company programs to exercise, stop smoking, eat less fat and reduce stress have cut their medical bills in half, according to results released Wednesday by the University of Michigan Fitness Research Center.
'We're saving more money in families and employees reducing their risk than it costs to run the wellness program,' said Pamela Witting, manager of wellness and disability services at Steelcase. 'It's a nominal cost when you look at how fast health care costs are rising.'
Witting wouldn't disclose Steelcase's total savings from the program, but in a report to its employees, the company said if all high health risk workers adopted low-risk lifestyles, 'the savings could amount to roughly $20 million over three years.'
Before Steelcase truck driver Joel Pounder sought help from the company's wellness program 1 1/2 years ago, he was 30 pounds overweight, smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day, and had frequent colds and stomach and sinus trouble.
'I had been to see the doctor a couple of times and he didn't quite know what was making me sick,' Pounder, 32, said Wednesday from his Grand Rapids home.
Ever since a wellness center therapist calculated his body fat content and he took advice to exercise, stop smoking and improve his eating habits, 'I haven't been to the doctor since. ... Exercise is a cure-all for a lot of things.'
The study is the longest running evaluation of its kind in the country, said D.W. Edington, director of the Fitness Research Center.
'The study confirmed that high-risk people are high-cost people. That makes sense, but it needed to be scientifically corroborated,' Edington said in a telephone interview from Ann Arbor.
The study is one of only a handful that have documented cost savings based on behavioral change, said Jonathan Showstack, associate professor at the University of California at San Francisco.
'It's more evidence for a corporation to put money into a program that teaches and helps employees to lead healthier lifestyles,' Showstack said. 'It's evidence for the decision-makers within the company to say, 'Yes, thisis a cost saving measure in the long run because our health insurance costs are going to be lower.''
Through Steelcase's wellness program, started in 1984, workers' health can be evaluated and programs suggested, including aerobics, stress management and smoking cessation. The company runs a health facility with a lap pool and exercise machines.
The study of 4,000 of Steelcase's 8,000 workers began in 1985, has been evaluated every three years and will conclude next year.
Ten percent of the participants shifted from high-risk to low-risk while 5 percent went the other way around, the study found.
Seventy-five percent remained in the low-risk category and 10 percent remained high-risk.
Average annual claims of employees who shifted to low-risk from high-risk dropped to $537 in 1988-1990 from $1,155 in 1985-87, the study found. Employees who were high-risk in 1985 and remained so in 1988 saw their average claims rise from $1,155 to $1,677.
Average medical costs of high-risk Steelcase employees were 75 percent higher than those of low-risk employees.
