Oakland County’s wellness program has saved the county $14 million over seven years and reduced the number of employees found to have serious medical problems as a result of voluntary health risk assessments, said Nancy Scarlet, the county’s human resource director.
At a meeting today of the Michigan Wellness Council, Scarlet said the percentage of high-risk physician referrals of employees after free health screening tests has declined to 3.6 percent of employees screened in 2013 from 14.9 percent in 2007.
“We have had people leave screenings by ambulance” after they were found to have an undiagnosed chronic disease, including high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels, said Scarlet in her speech at the Michigan First Credit Union in Lathrup Village.
OAKLAND COUNTY
From 2008 to 2013, Scarlet said, Oakland County’s OakFit workplace wellness program and other health program changes have helped to reduce the county’s annual projected health care costs by $27 million.
With 3,200 full-time employees, Oakland spent about $37.6 million in fiscal year 2013, down from $40 million in 2012. Since the program began in 2008, Oakland’s health spending has been nearly flat, after increasing 20 percent from 2006 to 2007, Scarlet said.
“Our health care cost increases are about 1 percent a year compared with 9 percent” before the program began in 2008, Scarlet said.
Oakland County – which operates a self-insured health program – also instituted other cost-containment changes in its health benefit program, including changing its benefit plans and vendors, increasing employee contributions and having 300 fewer FTEs due to layoffs and hiring freezes, she said.
“With health care costs rising 9 percent a year (from 2003 to 2007) we were feeling the budget pinch,” Scarlet said. “We also were dealing with the economic downturn that was putting a crunch on us.
“Wellness was one of several ideas put forward by (County Executive L. Brooks Patterson) to reduce costs. It was either cut health care costs or cut jobs.” Oakland County has increased its participation in voluntary health risk screenings to about 61 percent from 45 percent when it began. If physical examinations at primary care doctors’ offices are counted, however, about 75 percent of the county’s workforce has some sort of screening.
Some wellness programs include chiropractic massages, yoga, Weight Watchers, monthly lunch-and-learn meetings, laser therapy for weight loss and smoking cessation, line dancing and farmers market days.
In other meeting highlights, Scott Foster, founding chairman of the wellness council, is stepping down to devote more time to Troy-based Wellco, his wellness services and consulting company.
Replacing Foster as chairman for 2015 will be Susan Bailey, senior client solutions executive with Redbrick Health, a Minneapolis-based health and technology wellness company. Bailey formerly was with Beaumont Health System and DTE Energy Co.
Rita Patel also was introduced as the council’s first director.
