While relationships between employee health risks and subsequent total health costs have shifted somewhat over time, depression still accounts for employers' highest per capita medical spending, a recent study showed.
Depressed employees -- making up roughly 11% of the work force -- spent on average $2,184, or about 48% more on healthcare than their nondepressed coworkers, a study published in the November issue of Health Affairs found.
Ron Goetzel, PhD, director of Emory University's Institute for Health and Productivity Studies, and colleagues examined the correlation between modifiable health risks and increased healthcare costs at seven organizations over 3 years.
They found that 22.4% of the annual health spending was linked to the 10 risk factors they studied. In addition to the higher costs for those with depression, employees with high blood sugar had health expenditures that were an average of 31.8% higher than those without it, while those with high blood pressure had 31.6% higher costs, and those with obesity had costs that were an average 27.4% higher, Goetzel and colleagues wrote.
On a federal level, provisions of the Affordable Care Act encourage employers to adopt health promotion and risk reduction programs, the authors noted. "An underlying premise of these provisions is that modifiable health risks, such as obesity and high blood pressure, are associated with increased health care costs in the employed population. Therefore, employers that undertake risk-reduction programs may save on healthcare expenditures."
07/11/2012 : By David Pittman / MedPage Today.
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