Most Employers Underestimate Full Costs of Employee Health on Pr...(s of anenterprise. Executives/managers s...),Health

Researchers analyzed more than 1.1 million medical and pharmacy claims during the study. The ten corporations that participated ranged from an industrial chemical manufacturer and a computer hardware manufacturer to telecommunications and technology companies.

To fully gauge health-related productivity costs, researchers measured medical and pharmacy spending along with lost-productivity costs related to absence and presenteeism. The study notes that employers have not historically assessed costs in this way, limiting themselves instead to a "siloed" approach that seeks to manage single health-cost categories, such as medical visits or pharmaceuticals, through benefit-package design.

Researchers compared pharmacy and medical claims data to employee self- reported absence, presenteeism and health information collected through the Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ), developed by Harvard University researcher Ronald Kessler, PhD, and the World Health Organization. Information collected on employer business measures was combined with this database in modeling health-related lost productivity.

The analysis employed by the research team breaks down the silos typically used when examining the cost of health care for a company. "When medical costs are viewed in a silo, or without the broader context of the full health- related costs, the full impact of a given health condition may be seriously underestimated without accurately assessing the accompanying costs of lost productivity," Dr. Loeppke said.

"A healthy workforce is critical to an employer's ability to compete in today's economy," said Dan Leonard, president of the National Pharmaceutical Council. "This landmark study can help emplo
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