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Health Care System Saves Over $2 Million in Employee Insurance Costs

Posted on: Monday, 24 September 2007, 09:00 CDT

With the continued rising cost of health care insurance, one health care company has been saving costs with the help of a new program and its own employees. Jewish Hospital and St. Mary's HealthCare (JHSMH) has saved over $2 million in health care costs over the past year with a new program by Gordian Health Solutions. The two worked together to create the "Healthy Choices" program for JSHMH employees, currently in its fourth year.

Gordian works with its customers to identify, control and manage health risk factors and their associated costs. With the help of Gordian, JHSMH has experienced large savings in the program. "Using a rigorous quasi-experimental design with multivariate regression modeling, JHSMH showed healthcare claims savings for year two of the program of $413.70 per participant over the control group," said Adam Long, Ph.D., vice president of research for Gordian. "JHSMH was higher, on average, than other Gordian clients who typically average annual claims savings in the $200 to $300 range. Had the JHSMH program expenses remained at the year one levels, they would have realized a return on investment (ROI) of 2.15-to-1, which is consistent with Gordian's other clients. However, through good program management, JHSMH also reduced their program expenses substantially from the first to second years so that their year two ROI was 4.05-to-1."

JHSMH currently has 60% participation from its 5,000 eligible team members in this program. "We are saving each team member that participates $390 a year in their health care premiums," said Mark Carter, chief financial officer of JHSMH. "As a health care organization, we try to do everything possible to make health care affordable for our team members. Through a well designed health insurance program and with the implementation of this innovative program, I feel very confident that we are succeeding in this area."

"The Healthy Choices plan has been a great asset for us, especially in light of ever-increasing health insurance expenses," said John Hammond, director of Human Resources for JHSMH. "With the help of the Gordian program, we have been able to slow the growth of our health insurance expense to a rate much lower than national and even regional averages. In fact, as of the end of last year, our plan cost was about $200 per contract per month cheaper than other organizations of our size and type. That helps everyone -- the organization and team members alike."

The program is offered to any full- or part-time employee who is enrolled in one of the JHSMH health plans offered; new hires are also welcome to participate. JHSMH provides an intensive communications campaign to bring awareness of the services to its employees. As an incentive to employees to join the program and to live a healthier lifestyle, qualified employees receive a $15 discount on their health insurance premium each bi-weekly pay period.

Participants are required to complete a "Personal Health Analysis" each year. The questionnaire is completed directly and confidentially with Gordian and includes three programs for a participant to qualify in -- low risk, moderate risk and high risk.

In 2003, JHSMH started by offering 12 different lifestyle and chronic condition management programs, focused on the following areas:

Lifestyles - cholesterol management, smoking cessation, blood pressure, weight management, physical fitness, stress management and pre diabetes

Chronic Conditions - heart disease, asthma, gastro esophageal reflux, cholesterol and diabetes.

Since then, it has been updated with an additional eight programs:

Chronic Conditions: menopause, obesity management, osteoporosis, migraine, lower back, blood pressure

Lifestyles: osteopenia and "living healthier."

"Living Healthier" coaches participants on how to maintain a healthier lifestyle and set personal goals for improvement. The latter program was designed specifically with JHSMH in mind.

About Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare

Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare (JHSMH) is a regional health care network that includes 70 health care facilities and 1,900 patient beds in Kentucky and southern Indiana. The merger of Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services and CARITAS Health Services to form JHSMH combines the strength and honors the heritages of the two organizations to provide a complete array of health care services to this region and beyond, including hospitals, outpatient care, nursing home care, occupational health, psychiatric care and rehab medicine. JHSMH provides home health care to families in 41 Kentucky and southern Indiana counties, occupational health mobile services to 30 Kentucky counties, and employs a network of physician practices that provide both primary and specialty medical care. The organization employs more than 8,100 people.

About Gordian Health Solutions

Gordian is a leading national health and productivity improvement company that offers a comprehensive suite of products and services, such as population health risk analysis, telephonic lifestyle and chronic condition coaching, online products, health screenings, personal health assessments and incentive management services. Gordian helps employers, health plans and government entities identify, control and manage health risk factors and their associated costs through targeted and tailored programs, and sophisticated informatics and reporting capabilities. For more information about Gordian, visit www.gordian-health.com.

For more information on the Health Choices at JHSMH, contact Barbara Mackovic at (502) 587-4230. For more information on Gordian Health Solutions, contact Laura Campbell at (615) 579-6599.

Source: Business Wire

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