Health Groups offer guidance for outcomes-based wellness program incentives
A new initiative by a group of leading health care organizations has produced guidance for the use of outcomes-based incentives in employer-sponsored wellness (or health management) programs.
“The guidance is intended to help ensure that worksite wellness programs utilizing such incentives are effective and fair to all employees, and improve health results,” according to a statement by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
Outcomes-based incentives are a relatively new incentive design in which employees receive a financial reward for meeting a specific health outcome — or a penalty may be imposed for failure to meet a health standard. While the ability of outcomes-based incentives has not been well researched or documented, the impact of incentives linked to participation in wellness programs has been demonstrated by leading researchers as a means to increase employee participation.