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In Defense of Corporate Wellness Programs

"It's not clear whether [Al Lewis and Vik Khanna] are intentionally dismissing or simply misunderstanding the wealth of data that shows how wellness programs benefit participating employees. The RAND study summarizes it this way: 'Consistent with prior research, we find that lifestyle management interventions as part of workplace wellness programs can reduce risk factors, such as smoking, and increase healthy behaviors, such as exercise. We find that these effects are sustainable over time and clinically meaningful.' Lewis and Khanna, however, don't focus on such findings. Instead, they question the motives of a company for even offering a wellness program[.]"

Wellness Shock-and-Awe: Federal Court OKs 100% Non-Participation Fines

"Because the decision only applies to participatory programs and not outcomes-based programs, many companies will either not switch to outcomes-based programs or else maybe switch back. It also puts pressure on the EEOC to put the kibosh on this end-run around the ACA and Americans with Disabilities Act, which was also artificially ignored in this decision. Note that the decision can and should be appealed. Otherwise it is a de facto repeal of a big chunk of the Affordable Care Act." [EEOC v. Flambeau, Inc., No. 14-cv-638 (W.D. Wis. Dec. 30, 2015)]

Wellness Doesn't Work: Part 3 of the Proof

"If indeed workplace wellness prevented [a] huge increase [in wellness-sensitive medical admissions (WSMEs)] in the privately insured population, one would expect that these very same events would have risen by something similar to 60% in the non-privately insured population -- meaning the combined Medicare, Medicaid, and uninsured.... As wellness spending snowballed, the separation between those two populations' WSME trendlines should have increased significantly. Instead, we find these populations WSME-as-percent-of-total-admissions also flat-lined, just like the private-pay population."

Journal of Health Promotion Touts Wellness Gains But Data Better Interpreted as Admission of Massive Losses

"[W]hile per-employee losses from wellness based purely on added healthcare spending and program expense are 'only' in the three figures, the net reduction in productivity from a (speculative) 1% increase less a (certain) 3.75% decrease due to lost work time amount to a mind-boggling $5210/year. And that is probably an understatement."

Aetna Accidentally Invalidates the Wellness Industry's 'Savings' Model

"Aetna studied Aetna employees who, by Aetna's own admission, didn't have anything wrong with them, other than being at risk for developing metabolic syndrome, defined as 'a cluster of conditions that increase your risk for heart attack, stroke and diabetes.' In other words ... the subjects' 'diagnosis' was being at risk for being at risk. Not only did they not have diabetes or heart disease, but they didn't even have a syndrome that put them at risk for developing diabetes or heart disease. You and I should be so healthy.... And yet, Aetna reported savings of $1464/participant in the first year."

Even If Wellness Could Save Money, It Doesn't

"[T]he dramatic increase over the 13 years in the number of people whose employers push wellness should produce an equally dramatic decrease in wellness-sensitive medical events [WSMEs].... Instead ... these WSME admissions have trended essentially flat over the period, as a percentage of all admissions. In other words, there is no difference between the decline in admissions for WSMEs -- despite $7-billion/year being spent on vendors to prevent them -- and the declines in every other category of hospitalization."

Wellness Industry Leaders Shockingly Admit that Wellness Is Bad for Morale

"Why, having now read this revelation in [their] own words, that wellness is bad for morale, would any company still want to 'do wellness'? Or as we say ... 'If you're a general, would you rather have troops with high morale or troops with low cholesterol?' Isn't this the best argument for getting rid of your wellness program: You can improve morale and save money?"

Striving for 'Well-Being' Amid the Wellness Backlash

"While wellness programs may prevent a few heart attacks here [and there] and make companies feel like they're improving health, [Al Lewis and Vik Khanna] argue that it is hard to justify the $10 billion wellness industry as it currently exists. They suggest that any savings employers are promised or see are more likely to be a result of the high deductible health plans so many companies have adopted in the last decade. To some extent, their arguments are vindicated by recent research."

Wellness Plan Litigation Puts CEOs on Collision Course with Obamacare and Common Sense

"[On] Tuesday, December 2, the Business Roundtable's (BRT's) CEO is having a sit-down meeting with President Obama to demand exactly the opposite of what all the evidence shows: more flexibility and less enforcement to do wellness as the ACA empowers them to. In particular, they want the Administration to call off the EEOC watchdogs... The BRT's goal is to allow companies to punish unhealthy workers to the limits of the [ACA's] wellness provision.... In essence, the BRT leadership wants to make their employees love wellness whether they like it or not."

Does Your Wellness Program Hurt Your Profit -- and Maybe Even Your Employees?

"Suppose a vendor made you this proposal: 'Pay us to take your employees off the job for medical tests that the government specifically says are unnecessary, and then send them to the doctor (at your expense) even though the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) says healthy adults don't benefit from checkups. We also want you to bribe or even fine employees to drive participation. Despite this adverse morale impact and wasted time and money, we promise you'll reduce your healthcare spending, mostly because we'll make up the savings numbers.' ... Think you'd decline this proposal? If you have a wellness program built around screenings, doctor visits, and 'incentives,' you've actually already accepted it."