Wellco Leads Quest for Flat Health Costs

Royal Oak, MI, August 04, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Rising health insurance premiums have combined with growing political and social support to transform corporate wellness from a warm-and-fuzzy fringe benefit into a key strategy for lowering healthcare costs. Until recently, the lack of adequate tools made measuring the return on investment for wellness problematic at best. According to the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), nearly half of companies offering wellness programs have not even attempted to measure medical cost trends. However, mounting economic pressures make apathy untenable; the immediate need for critical evaluation of ROI is inescapable.

HealthHammer, developed by Wellco Corporation, is a new online system that measures and tracks avoidable health costs and conditions for companies of all sizes and types. It is the only appraisal system to help companies benchmark and achieve flat health costs over time—a process known in the industry as “zero trend.”

Scott Foster, President of Wellco Corporation, recognized the tremendous demand by companies and health providers to know if their wellness programs were really cost effective. Foster developed HealthHammer after years of personal experience in the wellness industry. Through his company, he began offering HealthHammer to employers, health plans, and agents without requiring them to hire Wellco as their consultant. “Rather than be a wellness provider, we became a company that fixes wellness programs. As a result, our competitors became clients,” says Foster. “Until now, companies have not had the resources to measure wellness-program outcomes and ROI. HealthHammer changes all that by transforming wellness programs from fad to foundational.”

One of those companies includes AJ Danboise, a Michigan plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical company. Using HealthHammer, Danboise quantified $248,033 in annual avoidable costs and began systematically tracking the health of a workforce where 94% of employees had at least one avoidable health concern. “We began a push for actionable wellness,” says Carol Gatewood, President of AJ Danboise, “and achieved an unheard-of 100 percent program participation. That translates to a 4:1 return on investment from our wellness program, a figure that could not have been achieved without the HealthHammer system."

Wellco Corporation works with organizations to measurably improve health costs and conditions. Wellco specializes in health ROI systems, health risk appraisals, corporate wellness programs, speaking, and consulting. In addition, Wellco is the developer of the award-winning HealthHammer, the first and only Zero Trend Appraisal system. For more information visit www.wellcocorp.com or www.healthhammer.com.

###