It pays for employers to help employees to take control of their health, and take preventative measures to avoid the chronic health issues that affect so many Americans.
This is why so many employers have added employee wellness or wellbeing programs to their benefits plans. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 84% of employers with 200+ employees that offered health benefits also offered a wellbeing program in 2019. These wellbeing programs vary in structure and contents, but typically offer incentives for employees to eat well, exercise, limit unhealthy habits, and reduce stress.
Wellbeing programs are not a new concept, but they have been evolving over time, as we’ve expanded our collective understanding of what wellbeing really means -- and how the stresses of work and life impact our ability to maintain our wellbeing.
Wellbeing programs are an investment in the health of your people, but not all investments will have the same impact or be as universally beneficial to your employees. As you are working to add or expand your company’s employee wellbeing program, it’s important to consider which benefits will actually have the greatest impact on your employees’ wellbeing.
Offering Paytient as a benefit to your employees is a low-cost, high-impact way to improve your employees’ physical and financial wellbeing. Here’s why you should consider making it the cornerstone of your wellbeing program.
What exactly does employee wellbeing entail?
When we think of wellbeing, we often think of physical health: Eating well, exercising, sleeping well, limiting unhealthy habits, and taking other preventative measures to maintain the health of our physical body.
And while these elements of wellbeing are important, they are just one piece of a much larger, and more complicated puzzle. There are eight dimensions of wellbeing according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): Emotional, Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, Environmental, Financial, Occupational, and Social.
An effective employee wellbeing program will help to promote wellbeing in as many of these as possible. Some of these dimensions are, understandably, easier for an employer to tackle than others.
Components of effective wellbeing programs
There are a number of ways for employers to create and structure wellbeing programs. While some companies opt for all-encompassing programs, providing generous on- and off-site services, many companies are increasingly transitioning towards a customized model in an effort to provide a cost-effective, yet well-rounded program that is best suited to their specific employee community. A recent report by Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Productivity Studies and the Transamerica Center for Health Studies provides a breakdown of some of the latest research on workplace programs. Some components of an effective wellbeing program included are:
- Creating a comprehensive workplace wellbeing strategy--offering a will yield much more effective participation and greater impact on your employees health compared to one-off challenges, such as an annual pedometer challenge or 5k race.
- Providing tools and resources to --incorporating employee assistance programs are crucial for creating change through establishing new habits or stopping harmful behaviors
- Utilizing to identify health risks and intervention opportunities
- rather than short-term health outcomes--use payouts to help employees improve behaviors, such as expanding transit subsidies to include bike sharing, or reimbursing gym memberships.
- and values--companies should seek ways to embed a total health model into every aspect of the business, such as through flexible work schedules, social support, enforcing health-promoting policies, and creating a healthy physical environment in the office through food offerings, staircases, or treadmill desks.
The intersection of physical and financial wellbeing
Offering Paytient to your employees gives them a resource they can use again and again to increase their physical and financial wellbeing.
The intersection of physical and financial wellbeing is a natural place for employers to offer value, because it is an area in which employers already hold significant influence. And it’s also an area where a lot of Americans struggle.
Stress has well-documented and devastating impacts on physical and mental well-being. Adults who are struggling to pay off debt are three times more likely to suffer from a mental health disorder, and twice as likely to report poor overall health. Even short-term debt has a considerable impact, carrying the highest risk of depression. While certain groups are more prone to higher or chronic debt-related stress, a survey released by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that most Americans, 72 percent, are stressed about their finances, with 22 percent extremely stressed.
This is one area where employers can step in and offer practical solutions to improve employee financial and physical wellbeing. Some employers will offer to contribute to (or match contributions to) HSAs as part of their wellbeing program. However, research into HSA utilization has shown that the people who need financial assistance the most, cannot afford to contribute to HSAs.
A more cost-effective and impactful way to help employees afford their care is to offer Paytient as a benefit. For just a few dollars a month per employee, Paytient gives employees a healthier way to pay for their care. Paytient gives employees the ability to pay for their care at the time of service, and then pay it off over time, interest free for up to a year.
Make Paytient the cornerstone of your wellbeing program
Paytient gives employers a practical, low-cost way to improve the physical and financial wellbeing of their employees. By giving employees a healthier way to pay for their medical, vision, dental, and even veterinary care, employers can have an immense impact on the overall wellbeing of their employees.
To learn more about Paytient, contact our sales team.
