Health Fair Personal Pampering

CEOs and CFOs know bottom line numbers and their Corporate Health Fair Return on Investment (ROI). Medical self-care programs have been shown to provide a significant return on investment

• A comprehensive health management program at Citibank generated $4.45 to $4.73 in reduced health care costs for every $1.00 invested.
• A blood pressure control program at General Motors generated $3.10 in reduced absenteeism (year 2); $3.90 in reduced absenteeism (year 3) for every $1.00 invested.
• A medical self-care (demand management) program at Union Pacific Railroad produced a 12.5% reduction in unnecessary physician visits and an ROI of $2.78 in reduced outpatient costs for every $1.00 invested.
• From a review of 13 studies of worksite health enhancement programs, $1.00 invested returned $3.48 (average) in reduced health care costs and $5.62 (average) in lower absenteeism costs.

Source: Leading by Example - Partnership for Prevention

In-Network Health Fairs are Guaranteed to save you money! Are you maximizing your health fair ROI?

Health Fairs Direct charges a coordination fee for all non-Manhattan health & wellness fairs because we guarantee in-network medical exhibitors for every corporate health fair and employee health program that we deliver. This fee is automatically paid back within 1 year through savings in your health insurance premium through Health Fairs Direct's health fair ROI:

- The savings in your health insurance premiums alone should show a 3 or 4 to 1 health fair ROI. (The following example assumes a $2,000 expenditure on the Health & Wellness Fair)

Ex: If a company has roughly 100 lives – at $600 per month this totals to $60,000 monthly or $720,000 annually in health care premiums. If only 10% of their population goes out-of-network for their medical needs, the overall premium goes up by 9% (based solely on this metric). By introducing the population to local, in-Network doctors, OHD helps to reverse this trend.

So by moving 10% of the population (or just 10 employees) to in-Network coverage, the client stands to save almost $65,000 on their premiums annually.

To break this down even further, if only 5 people start going in-Network for their health care it still equates to almost $33,000 in reduced premiums , or if only 1 person starts using in-Network doctors for his/her provider it should lead to a $7,200 savings – over a 3:1 heatlh fair ROI on the health fair alone!!!

This also works in reverse. For every out-of-network doctor or medical practice that you have at your health fair you are encouraging and even recommending to your employees that they should receive their medical care through out-of-network doctors. The burden of the resulting unnecessary cost increase will be shared by you, your company and the rest of your employees. Having out-of-network medical doctors at your health fair eliminates and even reverses the health fair ROI that Health Fairs Direct provides.

The only way to ensure a positive return on investment for your health and wellness fairs is insist on 100% in-network medial exhibitors. Here is why:

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According to the Actuaries at Lockton Companies LLC, (Employee Benefits Specialists), if 10% of a company's employees see out-of-network doctors the company will have an additional 9% increase in their next insurance renewal. (For more information about how out-of-network exhibitors increase your insurance premium contact Matthew Schmidt at matthew.schmidt@lockton.com)

In order to take advantage of the potential corporate health fair ROI that can be gained, even in the first year, corporations need to become pro-active in health programs. Health Fairs Direct provides that opportunity and ensures no hidden costs or back end out-of-network billing.

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Corporate Health Fair: The Many Benefits

As corporations are routinely being hit with double digit health insurance premium increases and continuing to cut employee health benefits does not seem to slow things down, they find themselves looking for ways to reduce costs. The most proactive way for corporations to do this is to implement a quality prevention and wellness program.

The best way of getting started with prevention and wellness is to sponsor a corporate health and wellness fair. Generally speaking, a corporate health fair is a mini wellness trade show that is held in-house at a corporate location. During this time employees can meet with local health and wellness professionals, receive free screenings, and learn about different ways of preventing and dealing with illness.

If a health fair or an employee wellness program is properly coordinated, and is accompanied with a solid year round employee wellness program, there are many benefits that a corporation will be able to take advantage of.

As a corporation, the main goal of a health fair is to address a wide variety of common problems that plague employees time and time again. Although the benefits of health fairs will differ greatly from corporation to corporation, most of them have some things in common.

Listed below are some of the more common benefits of corporate health fairs.

1. A corporate health fair can help to improve employee performance. Most corporations are well aware of the fact that employees can begin to wear down over time. This results in tired workers who are more susceptible to illness. In turn, the number of sick days among employees increases, and the effectiveness of the company decreases.

2. Employees who are educated on how to be healthy are much less likely to become distracted by health concerns and other similar complaints. It is human nature for people to get off course if they are worried about their health situation. Through health fairs, employees will be able to learn about common problems as well as how to better their own situation.

3. Many employees love corporate health fairs because they are able to receive free screenings and information on the latest health wellness advancements in a convenient setting. Most of the time busy employees will not take the time outside of the office to have these screenings done. A health screening today can help to prevent a lot of problems tomorrow. For this reason, corporations do not usually have a hard time talking employees into attending health fairs. Most of them are usually receptive to the idea; especially because of the long term health implications.

4. At a health fair employees will have the ability to take part in screenings for things such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, and skin damage. But in addition to first hand screenings, employees will also be able to take advantage of an overall educational experience. There are plenty of doctors and health care professionals on hand who are willing to speak one on one with employees. Of course, health fairs can also consist of speakers who will discuss the benefits of certain problems that may be of interest to your employees.

5. Employees are not the only ones who can benefit from health fairs. The corporation can also benefit in more ways than one as well. For instance, by having their employees pay closer attention to their health, they may find out that their health insurance premiums are not increasing nearly as much as they had in the past. And as mentioned above, a health fair will allow employees to feel better about their overall situation. Subsequently, this will allow them to perform more effectively at work.

Although the five benefits above are enough to sway many corporations to host a health fair, most of them are particularly interested in the actual screenings that can be down on site. These are of great interest because employees have the ability to get the service they need from in-network doctors with plenty of experience.

Interactive screenings can help to detect health problems before they become chronic and expensive to manage. So as you can see, cutting these problems off before they get out of control can save money for both the employee and the corporation.

But why can’t employees get these screenings on their own time, you may ask? Simply put, in today’s fast paced and competitive work environment, many employees do not have the time to visit their personal physician for a routine test. In many cases, these worksite screenings are the only health indicators employees will receive before a minor health concern becomes a chronic and expensive condition to treat.

The best health fairs are well rounded and include exhibitor topics ranging from personal to family as well as general health and wellness services. When it comes down to it, a large variety of exhibitors attracts a larger percentage of the employee population. Corporations need to remember that employee interests and concerns are often times diverse. So the more options that are offered during a health fair, the better chance corporations have of drawing a large crowd.

When setting up a health fair, corporations often times get so caught up in scheduling exhibitors that they forget about who will actually attend. After all, if you are going to have a health fair you need to make sure that a large number of employees participate. If nobody shows up, not only are you wasting time but you will never be able to reap any of the rewards of a corporate health fair.

Luckily, promoting attendance for a health fair is not as hard as many corporations think. Success starts with good internal promotion to your staff, gaining support of department managers, and offering incentives for employees to show up. Door prizes, giveaways, and other financial incentives can all be combined to increase employee attendance and participation.

Another successful method to attract and encourage employee attendance is for corporations to include local health and wellness providers to offer free screenings and educational information. After all, what employee does not like to get something for free? And if a free screening can help to keep them happy and healthy, they are sure to show up for any corporate sponsored event. Additionally, health fairs are always more successful when a bit of fun is worked into the equation. This could be as simple as showing employees how to naturally treat back pain, improve diets while working in a fast paced environment, tips for increasing energy, or even offering information on personal finances.

Designing and delivering a successful health fair is more complicated then it initially seems. Most corporations pass the responsibility of coordinating a health fair to human resources, benefits, corporate nurses or to their in-house fitness club manager. They do this because they do not have a designated or experienced event planner.

Most of the time these positions are already overloaded with other responsibilities, so the health fair is handled in their “spare time” or is put together on the run. This leads to medical practitioners being hired based on their “phone personality” and how nice they appear, instead of looking at professional qualifications, in network insurance status or potential implied legal complications.

There are several health fair planning land mines that any corporation must be aware of. Some of the more common problems are listed below.

1. Hiring a doctor owned health fair company is never a good idea. Most of these companies have one thing in mind; they want access to employees so that they can market their practice. In turn, employees do not benefit from the health fair, but instead become fed up with hearing sales pitches. (As a word of caution, most doctor owned health fair companies hide the fact that they are doctor owned so do your research and do not take the word of the sales rep.)

2. Booking out of network providers can be quite costly. This may seem like a good idea up front, but you will find out soon enough that your premiums have increased due to these providers billing your insurance company.
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3. Implied endorsement legal issues that come out of inviting in your own doctors offices directly or working with a doctor owned health fair company.

To achieve positive benefits from your health fairs and prevent your corporation from liability, consider the following:

1. Always hire an independently owned health fair company.

2. Always insist on 100 percent in network medical providers.

3. Always enforce a strict code of conduct for all exhibitors.

4. Always use a well established professional coordination company. (5 years minimum years in business and delivering over 100 events a year.)

5. Always do your research. Remember, free is not always free so be skeptical and protect yourself, your employees and your company.

As you can see, there are many benefits that corporations can take advantage of by sponsoring corporate health fair. To achieve the highest level of results, corporations must plan effectively and keep their best interests in mind.

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For more Health Fair Ideas Call
732-563-9749 x0 or email at

healthfairdesign@healthfairsdirect.com

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Health Fair Direct's corporate offices are located in New Jersey and New York, NY. Most of our health fair, flu shot, employee health program and employee wellness events are in New York City, NJ, CT and other major US cities.