Companies are placing more and more emphasis on the health of their employees — a tactic that could save the company big bucks and boost participation in your health care program if executed properly.

Basic equation: Healthy employees mean less money spent on health care. But not all companies are doing it the right way.

In a recent survey, companies whose financial incentives programs were thriving saw an increase of only one percent in their health care costs. That’s a positive sign considering the average company’s health care costs rise by six percent every two years.

But some companies with similar incentive programs saw up to a 10 percent increase - not good if you’re part of the 40 percent of companies already shelling out monetary rewards to employees.

Nearly half of companies surveyed currently offer incentive programs to their employees. Close to 75 percent said they plan to offer these programs in the coming year.

So how do you make sure you’re on the right side of this tricky health care dilemma? It’s important to make financial incentives look like one part of a new ideology where health care’s a consumer’s commodity.

Here are some things you can offer employees that could lower your company’s health care costs:

• Complete coverage of all preventative health care costs
• Coverage of retail clinic visits if employee uses as primary health care
• Financial rewards for employees who attend smoking cessation and/or disease management programs, and
• Lower co-pays for chronic illness medications.

Tags: Healthcare, Incentives, Preventive care