New Research Shows Investing in Preventive Care Improves Your Company’s Bottom Line
7 Minutes
Team Curative
Apr 16, 2024
When it comes to employer-provided healthcare, easy-to-use, comprehensive, and affordable healthcare plans positively impact a company’s bottom line. On the other hand, confusing plans, poor preventive care, and unclear cost structures create additional healthcare and HR costs for companies down the road.
“Investing in health prevention and wellness improves your company’s bottom line.”
Curative released a research paper exploring how preventive care and transparent plans increase productivity, decrease absenteeism, and foster positive work cultures.
Here is the top-line summary of the research’s findings:
Healthy employees take less time off work.
Employees who engage in preventive physical and mental care perform better and are less likely to burnout.
A healthy workplace, where people are encouraged to use their benefits, leads to a more positive work culture, making recruiting and retaining top talent easier.
Companies with preventive healthcare and wellness programs often see a positive return on program investment and a reduction in healthcare costs.
A healthy workplace is a more productive workplace.
The financial impact of poor healthcare on businesses
Businesses spend a great deal of time vetting the financial and legal implications of their healthcare plan selection, but the impact of employee healthcare doesn’t stop with the initial investment.
Confusion over health plans leads employees to put off preventive and routine care.
Deferred care leads to worsening health and chronic conditions.
Poor health causes poor workplace performance and drastically increased absenteeism.
Increased medical debt and time off lead to increased stress, which begins a cycle of worsening health and workplace performance.
In Curative’s national survey, half of people with employer-provided health insurance reported the following due to fear or inability to pay:
skipped preventive care, like routine tests and checkups
failure to follow through on tests or treatments
skipped provider-recommended vaccines
missed doses of medicine
Nearly half of those same respondents said they didn’t know how much money they would be required to pay out of pocket.
Preventive Healthcare prevents a downward cycle
The cost of poor health insurance goes beyond individual productivity. When an employee burns out or takes medical leave, your company has to recruit, hire, and train a new employee (who will ultimately have the same workload and health insurance).
Access to preventive care can address these routine medical issues before they become ongoing medical problems. And in many cases, transparent coverage and preventive care can create a positive cycle of better health and workplace performance.
Most of the literature reviewed in the full Curative research paper correlates increased work performance with preventive care. The research also ties health-related stress to lower productivity and higher employer costs.
Long-term financial impacts of investing in employee preventive care
The insurance you choose to provide for your employees has a profound effect on the rest of your business — even the long-term health of your employees and their families.
The latest Curative research paper found that offering health insurance focusing on preventive health can help improve employee health and create a workplace culture that values well-being.
And that starts with a health plan that is easy to understand. A meta-analysis in the Journal of Patient Education and Counseling found a “highly significant” tie between a patient’s health literacy level and willingness to follow through on treatment.
When considering the cost of your employer-provided benefits, take into account the long-term costs of a confusing plan that passes out-of-pocket costs on to the employee.
Improved health outcomes lead to decreased absenteeism
When we think about absenteeism, we typically focus on the missing employee. The Curative research paper found that one employee’s absence has a reverberating impact on the rest of the company.
A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management found that companies use overtime to cover almost half of absences. Productivity typically drops when employees cover for their peers.
And this isn’t a small problem. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 500-employee company has 15 absent employees on any given day, typically because of injury or illness.
How Curative can help improve your bottom line
Curative has a unique approach to employer-provided health insurance centered around affordability, engagement, and simplicity.
Affordability | You shouldn’t have to pay twice
Our members have access to $0 deductibles, $0 copays, and $0 preferred prescriptions.
Engagement | Use what you pay for
Curative care navigators help our members understand their coverage and find the appropriate care for their healthcare needs, beginning with routine preventive health.
Simplicity | Complicated insurance has adverse effects on health
According to Curative’s national survey, a majority of people with employer-provided insurance don’t understand their insurance plans, leading to deferred care, reduced health, and increased absenteeism.
The benefits of partnering with Curative
The research is clear. A health insurance plan that emphasizes prevention and focuses on affordability, engagement, and simplicity can reduce healthcare costs and increase employee health. Curative prides itself on helping employers do just that.
Be a workplace hero
A majority of employees surveyed don’t like, or even understand, their health insurance plans. Providing a simple, affordable, and accessible option will boost workplace morale.
In Curative’s national survey, 36% of respondents don’t understand their health insurance coverage, more than 30% report having to cut through red tape to access covered care, and nearly half don’t know what covered services will cost out-of-pocket.
Save on healthcare costs
Curative partners see sustainable cost savings because their employees actually engage in preventive care before their health issues become worse and more costly.
The cost of providing health insurance is increasing year over year. Your company can absorb some of that cost by focusing on prevention and healthcare usage. Every dollar you spend on adherence to prescribed care reduces medical costs by two dollars.
Read the full Curate research paper: “Investing in health preventive care improves your company’s bottom line.”
Download the latest research paper from Curative to see how employer-provided insurance can have a positive ROI.
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