Wellness pays: new state wellness tax credit provides small businesses multiple benefits. Many are unaware of it.

• Author: Held, Shad
• Position: Health & WELLNESS

MORE THAN 50 SMALL Indiana businesses took advantage of the Indiana State Department of Health Certified Wellness Program for 2007. The program gives small businesses (defined as two to 100 employees) that implement a certified wellness program for employees a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost of the program.

"It is beginning to build momentum," says Sally L. Stephens, who sits on the Indiana State Department of Health Advisory Board that certifies businesses and registers vendors. "Many people are still unaware of it. When we get the word out, then I think we will have a big surge of employers who either already have a program in place that they want to get certified for the tax credit, or will change their thinking m terms of the affordability of an effective wellness program."

Stephens is president of Indianapolis-based Spectrum Health Services. Spectrum has offered comprehensive health and wellness programs to employers around the country for 10 years, and is one of the registered vendors. Spectrum has a variety of available plans and resources for businesses, from comprehensive health and wellness programs to self-directed programs to onsite education programs to monthly health newsletters. It currently works with several clients with under 100 employees.

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"That doesn't mean that all of my clients with less than 100 employees automatically qualify," Stephens says. "If any one of the criteria is missing, that will disqualify them."

To qualify, wellness programs must focus on three key areas: employee weight loss, smoking cessation and preventive healthcare services. They must include a health assessment of employees, keep track of the number of participants, provide educational materials to employees in all three key areas, demonstrate that employees who make progress in the three key areas are rewarded and have a measurement tool in place to validate that the program has been effective.

If a business works through a registered vendor, such as Spectrum, the vendor will verify that the business has a wellness program in place that qualifies it for a tax credit. If the business is working with a vendor that is not registered, the business is responsible for completing and submitting paperwork to be approved for certification.

Investing in wellness. "Wellness is already the best investment that most business owners can make in their business," says Jerry Ripperger, national practice leader of consumer health for Iowa-based Principal Financial Group, a global financial services company with an Indianapolis office. "This...