Case Study - Investing in Prevention

Johnson & Johnson’s Benchmark Incentive Program

As a long time leader in worksite health promotion, Johnson & Johnson demonstrated that their worksite wellness program did, indeed, positively impact healthcare utilization and expenditures.

In 1995, Johnson & Johnson launched a wellness program targeting its 18,000-member employee insurance pool. From 1995 to 1999, the corporation realized an average annual savings of $8.5 million.

In fact, results reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine indicated a reduction in medical care expenditures of $224.66 per employee, per year.

As for how they accomplished such significant savings, Jennifer Bruno, Director of Business Planning for Health and Wellness at Johnson & Johnson says, “A large part of how we’ve been able to achieve this success is by incenting the completion of a health risk profile. We offer employees a $500 discount on their medical insurance costs if they are willing to take the health profile, and it’s worked very well. We saw participation rates for completion of the health profile jump from less than 26 percent without the incentive, to over 93 percent with it. We’re very pleased with those numbers.”

Source: www.welcoa.org/freeresources/pdf/wellness_matters_jk.pdf - pg. 8