Considering the uncertain healthcare climate, it is imperative that each company offering health insurance to their employees be aware of the some basic education programs that will mitigate the rising costs of healthcare. Programs that educate employees about improvements in nutrition and increased physical activity can help prevent up to 80 percent of lifestyle-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Wellness programs can also help employees manage stress. According to the American Institute of Stress, stress alone causes businesses nearly $300 billion annually in lost productivity, absenteeism, accidents, employee turnover, medical costs, and more.

For lack of a better pun, stress is something employers should “stress” about. In the Watson Wyatt’s 2007/2008 Global Strategic Rewards study of 411 full-time employees with medical benefits, 52% said their employer does not address stress, work/life balance, or mental/behavioral health with employees; while a staggering 40% weren’t even aware of what mental/behavioral health benefits were offered by their employer. The good news is that 35.7% of employees surveyed reported they would be more likely to use their mental/behavioral health benefits if their employer promoted them thus promoting a productive and profitable work environment.

Healthcare Reform Bill 3590 and Employer Costs

With the passing of Healthcare Law 3590, employer-based health benefits have changed. Businesses, if they are not already, will drown in healthcare costs, and something must be done. But will healthcare reform keep them afloat or further push gasping businesses with bureaucratic paper trails, audits, taxes, oversight leaving them with little choice but to ultimately go out of business?

The reform aims to make insurance premiums more affordable by creating a subsidized “health care exchange” by which all insurance companies must participate and abide by rules of cost containment and non-discriminatory coverage irrespective of pre existing conditions. Within this health exchange program will be a government plan option. I outline specific legislation in another article, H.R. 3590 and Business 2010.

There’s a problem with this logic however. In order to help make premiums affordable for all, the bill targets employers with a strong message: “play or pay.” If employers do not offer full employer-based health insurance coverage; contribute to the employee’s individual/family insurance premiums; or offer a contribution in lieu of coverage, they will have to “pay” a between $750 and $3,000 per employee per year fee based on company size and yearly payroll amount, not to mention your employees’ quality of care could be compromised as a result of long waits and inadequate resources. Many businesses may simply choose not to offer insurance, though we cannot ascertain this will happen conclusively at this point. The alternative of course is to incorporate wellness programs into the workplace to help fend off potential negative side effects of this bill as it is written today.

To help enforce this “play or pay” philosophy, government will have to boost its oversight of participating businesses while additionally auditing business practices. This plan could place heavy responsibilities and pressures employers who are the main gatekeepers to the insured, underinsured, and uninsured working populations. As an employer it’s important to truly examine how this reform could affect your employees and business systems. Be informed; take a critical look at H.R. 3590: http://www.house.gov.

5 Steps to Reduce Healthcare Costs Immediately

While you might not be able to control for the effects of health reform on your company, you CAN take a proactive approach to containing healthcare costs by improving the health of your employees through workplace wellness initiatives.

i) Inform employers about their health benefits
ii) Provide healthful foods in the workplace
iii) Provide alcohol-based hand sanitizers to prevent spread of the flu and colds
iv) Encourage daily physical activity in the workplace (i.e. taking the stairs)
v) Allow for three ten minute breaks throughout the workday for your employees to move away from their desks and stimulate activity.

It is highly suggested that if you are not already doing so, assign someone in your firm to evaluate and improve preventive health and well being practices in your workplace.

Nicole Laws Contributed to This Article

Merahs Diab holds a Bachelors Degree in Political Science with a minor in International Business from George Mason University and holds an MBA from the University of Miami. Merahs is a frequent guest speaker on various topics related to operations management and organizational behavior and has authored numerous works on organizational efficiency, marketing, and business decision making. He is the founder of DCG Advisors, a boutique management advisory firm that assists small to mid-sized companies restructure, find financing, virtual modeling, and in depth market analysis.

He can be reached at merahs@dcgadvisors.com.
(305) 720-2932

http://www.dcgadvisors.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4103625

There are many ways to beat stress and one of them is, in a sense, to beat it out – very gently, of course. “Emotional freedom technology” has its roots in acupuncture, but without needles, and mind-body medicine.

Finding a way to relieve our troubles can, in itself, be stressful. So you might try to tap into your inner voice and literally tap your troubles away. EFT focuses on meridians, the paths energy takes to flow through our body. Then EFT couples it with neuro-linguistic programming – talk therapy.

“You state an affirmation or a statement of what you want to happen or going on wrong in your life,” said Kerri Kannon, an EFT facilitator. “And you just tap on different energy meridians and it allows you to release those blocks that are keeping you from having a flowing life.”

Kannon says meridians can become blocked by trauma, injury, stress or fear.

“It’s helping people identify the conflict so they can release that and just relax and be free of whatever the conflicting thought, is,” Kannon said.

An EFT client came to deal with physical trauma from her childhood and she says it worked.

“I never really bought into therapy because I don’t believe in it just the mind, but I tried a lot of other techniques and this one kind of helped,” she said.

She looking to cope with the pain of a recent fall and the fears it’s triggered about her overall health.

EFT can be done without a practitioner once you learn the points to tap. You can do it anywhere, anytime and it can work along with traditional medicine. Often, one session is all you need to relieve the stress of a particular situation.