Our health is determined by where we live, work, play, and pray. These are our social determinants of health. They have a direct impact on our ability to afford safe housing and pay for healthy food, cover health care services, and access educational and economic opportunities and their benefits. As such, employment as well as the conditions of employment play a key role in determining health. Our guest for this topic is James S. Marks, MD, MPH. Jim is executive vice president,...

When GoodRx first came up on CoHealth's radar in 2012, the company's co-founder, Doug Hirsch, described the mission this way: "We want to mimic companies like Orbitz and create prescription-drug-price transparency so consumers are informed and can afford the medications they need."  Since then, GoodRx went on to win awards and accolades for its consumer-friendly interface (including CoHealth kudos for helping one of your co-hosts save $40 on a Rx). The company has also grown its services to...

The numbers are grim. No matter what report you look at, the picture of retirement for U.S. workers is not pretty. Let's put it this way: There's no beach and umbrella drink. Instead, there are plans to recover from the Great Recession, plans to continue working, plans to ratchet back one's lifestyle. Join us as we talk with Laurie Rowley, the co-founder and president of The National Association of Retirement Plan Participants (NARPP) to find out how we got here and what employers can do to...

Health risk assessments form the backbone of many wellness programs. Their aim? Provide employers with meaningful data for designing and evaluating wellness programs and provide employees with meaningful data for assessing and tackling individual health risk. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reports in its 2014 Employee Health Benefits Survey that 33% of firms (small and large) offer employees the opportunity to complete an assessment. More than half of these firms offer enticements to...

It seems as though all the talk in the human resources and employee benefits world today is about how employers are trying to "get out of the benefits business." The combination of the 2008 recession coupled with the passage of the Affordable Care Act stagnated employee compensation and began to erode employee benefits packages -- all in the name of cutting back on expenses and improving corporate profitability.  Then, on January 2, 2015, Bobby Fry, one of the owners of Bar Marco, in...

CoHealth Checkup cohosts, fran melmed (lower-case letters intended) and Carol Harnett, finally get to do what they've always wanted to do: Host a Car-Talk-like radio show on anything and everything related to employer-provided health, wellness and benefits. There are no promises that this will be a polictically-correct program, although no person or company will be maligned or otherwise attacked via this 30-minute conversation.  They're going to start with the topic of employees involved...

December is an interesting time to talk about healthy food choices. Once Americans are in the throes of the holiday season, we also tend to throw ourselves into the food and drink associated with the festivities. The outcome from all these celebrations is about 1.5 additional pounds for many of us. And, the majority never loses this weight. So, some of us enter the 2014 winter season approximately 15 pounds heavier than we started the 2004 season.  When we combine the concepts of eating and...

Second-opinion services are designed to instill confidence in employees and employers. Confidence in the accuracy of the diagnosis. Confidence in the planned treatment.  While second opinions are by no means new, delivering them virtually is. Today, medical centers like Cleveland Clinic and new companies such as 2nd.MD offer patients and concerned caregivers the opportunity to virtually consult with renowned specialists. Are these services an unecessary administrative burden without proven...

Over the last 20 years, the availability of voluntary benefits has grown from an anomaly to a strategy for the majority of employers. According Eastbridge Consulting Group, Inc., 54 percent of all employers provided at least one voluntary benefit in 2006. Six years later, that percentage has grown to 77 percent. For Eastbridge, the definition of voluntary benefits only includes life and health benefits where the employee pays 100 percent of the premiums through payroll deduction and there is...

Think of exercise as a fun or well-deserved break and you'll eat less afterward. Remove the tray from your cafeteria and you'll also remove the salad from your employees' lunch. Which foods you put first in your buffet line dictate what foods are taken. These surprising discoveries are only a few of those made by Professor Brian Wansink, the John Dyson Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell...

The numbers are staggering. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 35% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight in 2008, and 11% were obese. More than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011. And overweight and obesity are the fifth leading cause of death. Employers are grappling with the impact of this condition in a variety of ways, from programs and benefits designed to support weight management to changes in the built environment that encourage...

Mindfulness, mindfulness meditation and mindful living appear to be part of a growing trend for 2014 and beyond. Celebrities and CEOs alike are publicly sharing their reliance on mindfulness meditation as a way to cope with their lives. Mindfulness was a featured topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January and included daily mindfulness meditation practice before the start of each day. Join CoHealth Checkup as our guests, Lynn Kirby, a Temple University School of Medicine...

The wellness industry is abuzz again with the debate on whether employer-based wellness programs produce a return on investment. The RAND report released in mid-January 2014 analyzed 7 years of data from Pepsico's wellness and disease management strategy. The verdict? Disease management programs drove the lion's share of the ROI. RAND's Dr. Soeren Mattke joins CoHealth Checkup to review RAND's research on workplace wellness programs and what employers need to consider and expect when...

Financial stress, caregiving, job woes. These life obstacles are unavoidable, but how we cope with and address them, and who we have available to help, can make a monumental difference in our outlook and health. On this show we're joined by Alexandra Drane, founder and chief visionary officer and chair of the board at the Eliza Corporation. Eliza Corporation's new tool The Vulnerability Index™ measures both the magnitudes of an individual’s or population’s life obstacles, as well as...

David L. Katz, MD, MPH is an internationally renowned authority on nutrition, weight control, and the prevention of chronic disease. He's an author, advisor, patent holder, researcher, editor-in-chief, medical educator, and much more. Dr. Katz devotes his considerable knowledge, talents and energy to helping us slash our risk of disease. During this show we explore what companies are currently doing that help and hurt these efforts. 

If employers want to maintain or reduce healthcare spending, one of the best places to start is with employees’ use of hospitals. The long-time mantra in addressing health care costs is to keep employees out of emergency rooms, avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and, if an employee or their dependent is admitted, get them out of the hospital as quickly as possible.  A growing number of employers and insurance companies are using different strategies to direct employees to the best care,...

Our guest on today's show knows how to communicate health. Derek Flanzraich, CEO and founder of Greatist.com, has millions of readers flocking to the site for guidance on eating, fitness, sleep, and more. Listen in as Derek shares how Greatist.com has created science-backed health communications without the science (or corporate) jargon...or the finger wag.

According to Charlotte Rampell's NYT's article, the number of Americans who receive Social Security Disability Insurance for mental disorders doubled during the past 15 years. Employees with serious mental illness earn about $16,000 less than their mentally well counterparts. And many mentally ill workers, who are more likely to miss work, also suffer from what social scientists call presenteeism — the opposite of absenteeism — in which they are very likely to be less productive on the...

Employers are rapidly moving away from incentives and toward penalties as they grapple with creating and supporting healthier behaviors. Employees incur these when an action isn't taken, and at an increasing number of companies, the penalties are assessed when employees don't meet certain health standards (BMI, cholesterol, etc.). According to the 2013 National Business Group on Health/Towers Watson survey on employer practices, 16% of employers already tie incentives to health standards and...

The Technology & Employee Wellness Survey conducted by ShapeUp and context in 2012 made it clear employers were gearing up for health technology adoption. 54% were considering the use of sensors and devices. 56% were ready for other mobile-based solutions. Today's guests offer such solutions to employers and their employees.  Martha Wofford is the head of the CarePass platform at Aetna. CarePass is a platform that helps Aetna members and nonmembers choose popular mobile health apps and...

CoHealth is excited to have the controversial thought leaders, Al Lewis and Tom Emerick, as our guests for this no-holds-barred discussion on health and employee benefits.  Tom, the retired global leader for employee benefits design at Walmart and Al, the president of the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium, are well-known for their non-conformist viewpoints on employee health and wellness. Now, they've written a book together and have shared Chapter One with our radio...

One of the side benefits of the Affordable Care Act is opportunities seen by many to alter how employee benefits are offered. This episode of CoHealth Checkup focuses on private benefits exchanges. A number of these exchanges are not limited to health insurance but, instead, include a wider array of employee benefits such as dental, vision, life and disability insurance. (Think cafeteria plans on steroids.) We will be joined in this live show by Tracie Foster and Mark Moksnes from WellPoint's...

Five employee benefits leaders joined CoHealth Checkup co-hosts, Carol Harnett and Fran Melmed, at the end of the second day of the inaugural Human Resource Executive Health & Benefits Leadership Conference in Las Vegas for a no-holds-barred conversation about the conference and employee benefits in general. We were joined by: Andrew Gold, VP, Total Rewards, Pitney Bowes, Janet McNichol, Human Resources Director, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Vlad Gyster, CEO and Founder,...

Our guest for this episode is Bob Merberg, employee wellness manager at Paychex. Bob Merberg is a contemplative guy. His approach toward Paychex’s health and wellness program combines a balanced review of the current literature, a determination to meet the needs of Paychex’s 12,500 employees, and a commitment to satisfy the organization’s goals. Bob’s viewpoints diverge from what’s au courant in employee wellness, but that’s due to the data telling him something different from many of the...

Healthways, a company that's been focused on improving people's health and well-being for several decades, took on a new initiative three years ago. It's called The Blue Zones Project. It's purpose is to make "communities that are happier and healthier places to live, work and play." Amy Moore, is the Healthways' innovation design leader who is focused on how employers fit into this mission. She will share how the Blue Zones Project has impacted employers and their employees during the first...