What's Your Wellness Score? The Principal Financial Group answers the question with new ways to measure and manage employee wellness
July 19, 2007 (Des Moines, Iowa) — Employees cite improving overall physical health as the number one reason to participate in a wellness benefit program according to the Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM1. That's good news for employers who want to engage their employees in health improvement activities to ultimately lower medical claim costs. Now both employers and employees have an easier way to measure their success with The Principal Wellness Score. At the same time employees can now better manage their personal health online through My Health Manager provided by WebMD.
"Employers looking for ways to improve the health and productivity of their employees and drive down benefit costs want to see the big picture regarding their employees' state of wellness. With the wellness score, employers now have an actual number to measure the health of their employee population," said Audrey Vaughn, second vice president of wellness and medical management at the Principal Financial Group®. "Using the number, employers can track health-improvement from year to year to get a better idea of what will happen to their claim costs over time. Quite simply, a higher aggregate wellness score could indicate lower costs in the future."
The Principal Wellness Score, developed with John Lowe, Dr. P.H., director of the Prevention Research Center at the University of Iowa, was designed to give participants a simple way to track their health status year after year. Each employee who participates in an on-site wellness screening is assigned a score ranging from zero to a maximum of 100. That score incorporates an individual's health-screening results (biometrics) together with the responses to a Health Risk Appraisal questionnaire on lifestyle behaviors and personal health history. Once each individual has received his or her score, the results are provided in an aggregate form to employers, ensuring confidentiality.
"Although cost is often a driver in employers' decision to implement wellness programs, the benefits go far beyond cost to include increased productivity and job satisfaction," noted Vaughn. "As part of an ongoing commitment to consumer driven healthcare, we'll continue to look for new ways to drive down costs by helping our members understand and manage their health."
Through a relationship with WebMD, The Principal® is introducing My Health Manager for wellness and health plan participants. Using the tools available in My Health Manager, members can enter their personal health information to determine health status, set goals and track improvement. Members are able to maintain an online personalized health record and have access to tailored health improvement resources like weight loss and smoking cessation. The program also provides free access to WebMD's in-depth online health content.
About Principal Wellness Company
Principal Wellness Company promotes prevention as a key factor in addressing looming health care costs by providing onsite health and wellness screenings including overall wellness program development, private member consultations and personalized high-risk interventions. Wellness services from Principal Wellness Company are available to any employer interested in keeping health costs down by motivating employees to become actively involved in staying healthy.
About the Principal Financial Group
The Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®)2 is a leader in offering businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services, including retirement and investment services, life and health insurance, and banking through its diverse family of financial services companies and national network of financial professionals. A member of the Fortune 500, the Principal Financial Group has $270.1 billion in assets under management3 and serves some 17.6 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit www.principal.com.
Insurance products and services issued by Principal Life Insurance Company.
1) The Principal Financial Well-Being Index, 4Q 2006.
2)"The Principal Financial Group" and "The Principal" are registered trademarks of Principal Financial Services, Inc., a member of the Principal Financial Group.
3) As of March 31, 2007.
