When properly integrated with a corporate wellness plan,research demonstrates that biometric screenings can help reduce healthrisks, improve health status, reduce health care costs, and improveworkplace productivity and performance.

The Willis Health and Productivity Survey Reportshows that 74 percent of employers now include a biometricscreening as part of their workplace wellness program and thisnumber is likely to rise as more companies come to understand thevalue they can provide employees.

Screenings help employees know theirnumbers

Learning a few numbers—through a health screening—tells youremployees quite a bit about their health. A biometric screeningprovides a baseline assessment of your employees’ healthstatus regarding obesity, blood pressure, bloodglucose, total cholesterol, HDL and LDL cholesterol, andtriglycerides.

Screenings can help detect disease in its early and mosttreatable stages—even before symptoms are recognized—and provide asnapshot of a participant’s health that prompts them to takeaction. In fact, 98 percent of the screening participants at ourclient sites said they plan to take steps to change unhealthybehaviors that lead to health risks.

On-site or primary care provider-based healthscreenings?

When it comes to health screenings, employers are faced with achoice: provide on-site screening services orsend their employeesto their primary care doctor or a lab. At HealthFitness, employeesat our client sites have the option of participating in on-sitehealth screenings or obtaining similar services through theirprimary care provider.

On-site health screenings remove barriers for employeeparticipation, such as perceived lack of time andinconvenience.

On the other hand, screenings through alternative means, such assending employees to their primary care provider, might be a goodsolution for employees that work remotely in several locations.

Even if you understand the value of on-site health screenings,the question for employers remains: Is it more cost-effective toscreen your employees on-site or send your employees to theirprimary care provider?

Recently, our Science and Analytics team set out to answer thisquestion by analyzing medical claims data from employees at ourclient sites from 2007 to 2015. Using a per-capita cost of $65 foron-site screening, the team analyzed data and modeled the salarylevels of employees— ranging from minimum wage to a six-figuresalary.

The result? On-site health screenings are far morecost-effective to employers than primary care provider-basedscreenings.

Our key findings include the following:

• On-site health screening is more cost-effective than primarycare provider-based health screening across all study years—from2007 to 2015.

• Health screening at a primary care provider may cost between 2.1and 3.2 times more than an on-site health screening.

• At all salary levels—from minimum wage to salaries of more than$150,000—it is more cost-effective to use on-site healthscreening.

Our team regularly partners with our clients to make informed,fact-based decisions. We will continue to conduct research onhealth screenings and will focus on outcomes and projections.