Fiscal fitness: how wellness programs can boost the bottom line.

Imagine getting a $120 discount on your health insurance for agreeing to take the stairs instead of the elevator. How about getting a $50 gift certificate to your favorite store for agreeing to wear a seat belt or to work out regularly? These are just a couple incentives some companies give employees who participate in a company-sponsored wellness program.

With the help of hospitals and fitness providers, Indiana companies are providing their employees with a variety of wellness programs designed not only to improve workers' health but also to hold down healthcare costs, reduce absenteeism and help in the recruitment of quality employees.

"We know that promoting health at the workplace will eventually affect the bottom line in a positive way," says Chris Arvin, wellness service coordinator for Columbus Regional Hospital. "But it's not a quick fix."

Although wellness professionals acknowledge that some wellness benefits - such as improved morale - are intangible, studies show wellness programs can have an impact on a company's medical costs. For example, a study by consumer-products maker Johnson & Johnson estimated that helping an employee quit smoking can save $1,100 a year, while the same study estimated that an employee who starts an exercise program can save the company an estimated $260 a year. According to Compensation and Benefits Management magazine, for every $1 that Blue Cross of Indiana spent on its employee-wellness program, the company received $2.51 back.

"Well-designed, well-implemented wellness programs can be very effective," says Darrell Mendenhall, coordinator of the internal wellness program for Clarian Health, an Indianapolis-based health-care provider whose holdings include Methodist, Riley and Indiana University hospitals. "If we can get 20 people into a smoking-cessation program and five of them quit smoking for life, then we've paid for that program for years."

Wellness programs, which grew out of both the fitness craze of the 1980s and in response to skyrocketing health-care costs, can take a variety of forms, including monthly newsletters filled with health tips, seminars, discounts at fitness clubs or full health screenings and follow-ups.

"It's sort of like a grocery store where there's a shelf full of services, from employee screenings to seminars." explains Jeff Hutson of Hancock Memorial Hospital and Health Services in Greenfield. "We take these services to businesses and ask them what they want off the...