How The Right Chronic Condition Management Program Can Make Your Employees Happy, Healthy, and Level Up Your Benefits Strategy
Employee happiness and well-being resonate far outside your organization—employees can act as unpaid marketers for your company. By giving insight into your investment in their health, they can impact your bottom line by allowing you to significantly lower the attrition rate and attract new talent.
When it comes to chronic condition management platforms, what often gets overlooked is the relationship between the program facilitators (i.e. health coaches and customer support teams) and the program participants. A self-care program that provides a personalized approach directly impacts outcomes. For many people living with these conditions, there is no additional support outside of their primary care physician. Making lifestyle changes can be challenging and seem like too high of a mountain to climb. That’s where a self-care program with expert health coaching comes in.
Qualified health coaches are credentialed professionals who often specialize in a specific chronic condition. They meet the participants where they are in their health journey and are the support system needed in between doctor visits. Any reputable self-care program also offers a technical support team that can set participants up for success when going through enrollment and onboarding.
Traditional healthcare is a reactive approach to chronic condition management whereas an employer-offered self-care program is proactive and can be preventative as well. According to the CDC, employees with chronic conditions cost an estimated $36.4 billion ($1,685 per employee) in lost productivity due to employee absenteeism.
Shira Wilensky, National Practice Leader of Health & Well-Being at OneDigital, agrees that offering a program like One Drop “has turned old school disease management programs upside down by delivering a highly personalized, digital self-care program that people actually want and value. They focus on the most prevalent conditions impacting employees and family members.”
To personalize the health journey for your employees, you need to get to know them and that requires data. A platform that brings all of the data about a person living with a chronic condition into one place helps a health coach and customer support representative understand the full context of their conversations and deliver a personalized, proactive, and empathetic approach.