Encourage employees to use this important benefit.

With little sign of the tide turning on rising inflation costs and a somewhat damp response to salary increases, where they have been possible, employers are searching for ways to maximise value for staff in other areas. As one of your higher value employee investments, your company medical scheme is the first place to look for returns – particularly when it comes to those preventative wellness benefits, which are so often poorly understood and underutilised.

There is a tendency to neglect healthcare needs in times of financial hardship and pressure, however this is precisely the moment to take stock of overall health to be able to achieve high levels of performance, which means that maintaining work life balance is more important than ever.

And while it is now widely accepted that healthier employees are more productive, there can be a disconnect between having medical scheme cover and having cover that is properly utilised, where the maximum healthcare potential is being extracted for and by your team.

So, what does an effective preventative wellness strategy look like for your company?

Simplify it for them

If you want your employees to engage in healthier behaviour, ensure they have access to healthcare benefits. All the better if this can be achieved through a medical scheme partner that makes it easy for you and your colleagues to understand and use those benefits to maximum effect. 

Not only does offering company medical scheme membership make it clear that you care about employees’ wellbeing, it can also have real and tangible effects on your business by lowering absenteeism and reducing the number of sick leave days that you are paying for.

You would not want unwell staff coming in to work when they are not able to function properly, as presenteeism results in mistakes and can lead to the spread of illness, such as seasonal colds and flu in the workplace, putting undue pressure on productivity levels at a time when you cannot afford it.

Many still believe that individuals are responsible for their own health, but South Africa does not stand among the ranks of the world’s healthiest countries. In addition to our high rates of hypertension and HIV, research shows that overweight and obesity affect half of our population at 23% and 27% respectively, according to the World Obesity Atlas 2022, and that South African women will carry the highest obesity rate in Africa by 2030 at a whopping 50%. When you consider the number of female hires on your team and the multifaceted value that they add, this is alarming. 

Looking at the associated health risks of obesity in general, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis and certain cancers, employers aiming to have a well workforce would certainly wish to avoid the development of these illnesses among their ranks.

The value of having annual check-ups covered could be priceless, from blood pressure, blood sugar, BMI and cholesterol to essential men’s and women’s screenings such as a Pap smear, mammogram and PSA test. As your financial department will attest, you don’t know what you’re working with until you know your numbers, and numbers never lie. The same is true at an individual level and it is from here that you can support real change for better health in your workplace.

Back it up with meaningful interventions

Giving staff access to preventative checks is an important benefit to provide. However, this is more meaningful if you can follow it through with a medical scheme that further reinforces wellness with the benefits required to help address any lifestyle concerns at a practical and foundational level before they develop into serious illnesses.

Any medical scheme worth its salt can help you entrench a culture of health and wellness in your workplace by, for example, making a healthy eating programme accessible to all your employees and providing consultations with a registered dietitian to help them develop their own personalised healthy eating plan. Forward-thinking medical schemes would pay such a benefit directly from risk so that it does not affect any other healthcare benefits on which most members have to rely to see them through the year.

In addition, a scientifically based fitness assessment and exercise prescription programme would go a long way to getting team members on track to better health, particularly if this included regular professional input and ongoing monitoring with a registered biokineticist at an accredited exercise facility or from home, if preferred. 

What a difference it would make to employees who spend time raising their children to know that their employer has provided medical scheme membership that not only takes care of their health but also that of their kids. Cover for children’s health screenings and immunisations as well as specially developed kids’ nutrition and exercise prescription programmes can make a world of difference, along with pregnancy wellness programmes for employees or their partners who may be expecting.

Support employees in using their benefits

While this may sound simplistic, the majority of South African medical scheme rules and benefits are confusing to members, and many are unsure about how to access the preventative and wellness benefits available to them. In many cases, they may not even know what these benefits are.

A simple solution that provides all staff with the same level of excellence in their preventative and wellness benefits across the board makes it much easier for individuals at different levels to know just what healthcare benefits are available to them, particularly when these benefits are all paid from risk and do not require any additional expenditure or loyalty programme membership, thereby leaving other healthcare benefits intact.

The medical scheme that truly has the best interests of your employees at heart wants members to use their preventative and wellness benefits and therefore will ensure that they are easily accessed and clearly communicated in member packs and communications. 

Lead from the front

When encouraging employees to utilise these benefits, support from company leadership can go a long way in demonstrating how straightforward it can be and how important regular preventative care is in achieving better wellness.

At this particular time of year, many organisations wishing to encourage more employees to make use of their annual flu shot benefit report greater levels of successful uptake when company management leads internal campaigns.

The experienced medical scheme will tell you that the same is true for all preventative benefits and that it can only help to raise wellness levels within an organisation when there is active buy-in at management level. This makes the point that company healthcare cover is so much more than a gesture – it is a valuable tool that can be used in numerous ways to consistently enrich your health.

And finally, for those employees who do require further healthcare support in the event of an unfortunate diagnosis following preventative health check-ups, it will make the world of difference to know that their employer has ensured they are well looked after with a reliable medical scheme that they can count on for chronic care management or an unlimited oncology benefit, should they need it.

It’s true that prevention is better than cure but, whatever the case, having a medical scheme partner in your employees’ corner can take a weight off everyone’s shoulders – and, let’s be honest, we could all use that right now.

Sources:

https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/World_Obesity_Atlas_2022_WEB.pdf

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight.

Josua Joubert is Chief Executive and Principal Officer at CompCare Medical Scheme.