Employee health is of paramount importance to employees and employers alike. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best when he stated, “The first wealth is health.” The challenge for all companies is not to determine whether or not they agree that health is important, but to build an organization that is strong enough to sustain economic profitability and cover rising health care costs for its employees.

Whose burden is it to cover health care costs? Is the onus on the employee to simply stay in-shape and live a healthy, low-risk lifestyle? Is the responsibility upon the employer to ensure that the working population is healthy and taken care of, regardless of expense? Or, perhaps, is there a shared responsibility for employees and employers, along with an obligation for the entire organization to maintain self-governess over the right to be healthy?

In a day and age where the cost of care outweighs the ability to care for all people in the United States, Canada, and all other countries around the globe, the right to be healthy must be earned. All people wish to be “covered” with limited-liability to pay for health expenditure. To do this however, requires discipline and a timely healthcare strategy.

Companies who reserve the right to be healthy are companies of excellence. These companies are the kinds of companies Jim Collins talks about in his widely-acclaimed book “Good to Great”. To secure the right to be healthy, companies this day in age must be “Great”. To be a company worthy of financial success and stability as well as the wealth of great health, policies must be in place, goals must be written, corporate buy-in must occur on all levels, employees must understand how cost is affected by poor health practices, and a commitment must be given maintain and improve employee health.

There are many things that can be done to improve employee health. Some of the best healthcare providers and corporate wellness firms have actually developed the ability to improve health while improving the bottom line. These companies have learned that health is not only the first wealth, but health can in fact be wealth. Being healthy can actually improve profitability.

So how is it done? How do these organizations create programs that are so powerful that they go beyond covering the cost of the program, but can actually show realized cash savings? To do this, a few things must be in place. Companies that wish to go beyond the mark in reducing healthcare costs must have the cash available to invest in corporate wellness. They must also be able to do enough research to locate a corporate wellness firm that can accomplish realized cash savings, a luxury that many wellness companies report to able to do by providing an “ROI”, but few can actually accomplish.

The most successful companies also usually have the following commonalities: Self-insured, over 1,000 employees, and participation levels over 70%. Self-insured companies set cash aside each month into a pool which they draw upon when medical expenses are incurred. The amount of money set aside is usually determined with their benefits consultant or insurance broker so that it will cover any expenses up to a certain catastrophic stop-loss amount, which the insurer or re-insurer assumes the risk to cover. This means that self-insured companies have the ability to set aside more money in a year than they might actually spend.

Kersh Risk Management is one of the few companies that has proven to make such a dent in the bottom line that at the end of the year millions of dollars have been left sitting in the bank account, unused and untouched, astonishing even the benefit brokerage firms who help cover their medical benefits.

When looking for a corporate wellness program for your organization, make sure to ask about realized cash savings, not simply a calculated “ROI”. Ask what interventions will actually be implemented into your population. Is the program just health promotion material and a questionnaire? If so, you probably aren’t going to be changing the health status of your population enough to even cover the cost of the program, although it may be a necessary step to begin solving the health awareness problem your company may be facing. Real results require real measurement and real dollars. It also requires working with a group that knows how to make sure your company reserves the right to be healthy and put money back into the bottom line profit of your organization.

If you wish to know more about the Kersh Risk Management wellness program offering, click here to request a free corporate wellness proposal.

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