Keeping up with a changing health care landscape
Every business out there is thinking of how to cut costs.
Yet we also know that it's the people at our companies that are ultimately responsible for our product, our brand, our company.
So, as the cost of health care plans has risen, HR directors and CEOs and CFOs have taken a hard look at their premiums and bitten the bullet.
Healthy Business addresses the issues that are facing businesses of all kinds.
In a story on Page 20, “Shifting policies,” Nancy Marshall, who owns Nancy Marshall Communications in Augusta, talked about the dilemma businesses face.
“Premiums were going to go up significantly so I started shopping around,” she says in the story. But she notes that a decision of that magnitude has an impact on employees. “Any time there's a change that affects their pocketbooks, it's unnerving. We just wanted to reassure them that this would be better for them.”
We've all been there. Health insurance policies are only part of keeping employees healthy.
Dan Bookham, business insurance development director at Allen Insurance and Financial in Camden, found himself on the road, meeting with clients, often eating the wrong food, as he recounts in our cover story, “What if you could lose 15 pounds at work?”
“Coming into this role, I found myself between a desk and computer or my car, eating chicken strips at gas stations,” he recalls in the story. He may have been partly joking about the gas-station fare, but the outcome was real. “I gained weight and began to have concerns, as I was heading into my 40s, about my overall health.”
To allay his concerns and those of other employees, Allen Insurance launched a partnership with Patient Advocates in Gray. The partnership offered Bookham and other employees with health screenings and health coaching.
“I've been able to take control of my diet with their support,” Bookham says. “It's useful information that's tailored to me.”
His levels of blood sugar and “bad” cholesterol went down, as did his weight — by 15 pounds.
Yet employers are recognizing that not all health care management is physical.
Charles “Wick” Johnson, president of Kennebec Technologies in Augusta, is among the business leaders who made mental health a priority. Like a growing number of companies, Kennebec Technologies offers an Employee Assistance Program with mental health coverage.
“Companies are not happiness machines,” Johnson says in a story on Page 16, “Investing in mental health.” He adds: “That doesn't mean we can't be sensitive to employees' changing circumstances. You can't overstate how valuable it is to have a stable workforce that is committed and engaged.”
Health care coverage has become as complex as the people it aims to serve. But we hope that this issue of Healthy Business helps in understanding the issues and planning for your own company's needs.
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