In a recently published study by the Lewin Group , pre-diagnosed Diabetes costs are costing the US $18B a year in addition to the $174B in annual expenses and lost productivity.

It is not uncommon for an individual with Diabetes to have co-morbidities such as Heart disease and Obesity that also result in high annual medical claims and lost productivity. What is interesting to me is that some health and wellness programs are focusing soley on Obesity as the underlying driver of Diabetes and Heart Disease and therefore, focusing their prevention efforts soley around weight management. Employers and health plans are making substantial investments in engaging the consumer in the battling the bulge. Weight management rewards programs have evolved from using incentives for participation to a more outcomes-based approach, rewarding participants for losing weight and rewarding them more for keeping it off.

Weight management programs have proven to be effective, delivering a return on investment of approximately 5-1. What strikes me as interesting is that while weight management rewards programs have proven to be effective, many health and wellness programs are still not emphasizing these programs for their population and I am not sure why.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 4:50 am and is filed under Weight Management Incentives, health and wellness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.