
Ask the Experts: Why has health coaching become so popular as a resource included in benefit offerings?
There’s no question health coaching has become increasingly recognized as a wellness resource over the past decade. When I started as a Health Educator with Security Health Plan nine years ago, a lot of employers didn’t know health coaches existed. Today, employers want to make sure their wellness programs include health coaching as an offering for all their employees. To give a sense of scale, Security Health Plan had more than 3,800 health coaching cases in 2016.

There are many reasons for this rise in popularity, and they seem to fit into three main categories. First, our state of Wisconsin — and really our whole country — has become more proactive in promoting health and wellness. Second, employer groups can realize several important benefits when they offer health coaching to employees. Finally, more and more people are recognizing that health coaching can have a positive personal impact, which increases demand from our members.
How does a focus on proactive wellness promote health coaching?
Health care can be very expensive, especially if health-related issues are only being treated after they become problematic. That fact alone has persuaded many Americans to proactively improve their health and wellness. Certainly this has been the case for employers in Wisconsin, who increasingly turn to wellness programs to manage health care costs while still providing attractive benefits.
In my personal experience as a health educator, I’ve witnessed growing interest and investment in health and wellness promotion overall. While health coaching is an important component of this, we also provide our employer groups with onsite presentations, health risk assessments and onsite screenings and promote preventive exams. There’s a powerful snowball effect at work here, where the more we offer these services, the more their impact is recognized and the greater the demand becomes.
What benefits do employer groups gain from health coaching?
Not surprisingly, employer groups tend to be very interested in how wellness programs can help them save money and there are all sorts of statistics that support that argument. For instance, a national study published by Health Affairs concluded that 22.4 percent of annual medical spending was related to modifiable risks. Compared to the relatively high cost of these modifiable risks, the relatively low cost of many employee wellness programs offers a clear path to reduced medical spending through the reduction of risk.
We’ve seen this benefit play out among Wisconsin employers as well. In 2016, health assessments were completed by 8,781 Security Health Plan members. We receive analytics from CoreInsights, which is powered by WebMD services. Those analytics showed the average excess medical cost, estimated per person, is $974 per year. Among this same population, there is an estimated $1,052 loss due to absenteeism. An additional $1,764 per person is lost on employees who are present but unproductive due to illness or other medical conditions. At Security Health Plan our goal is to reduce health risks that could lead to poor quality of life and unnecessary costs for our members. Our priority is our members.
Beyond advantages related to health risk reduction, employers can realize other important benefits when they offer a comprehensive wellness program. For one, it shows — not just tells — employees that they genuinely care about their health. In my professional experience, I’ve seen and heard firsthand just how much this matters to people. They want an opportunity to be well and they want to feel cared for by their employer. Companies meeting this need are more likely to attract and retain outstanding employees.
These programs also allow us to demonstrate change over time to our employer groups and this is very valuable. The aggregate reports we provide to groups who participate in health assessments can clearly indicate progress toward wellness objectives. I don’t know of any employers who wouldn’t like to have access to powerful metrics that can help justify continued investment in promoting wellness.
How does health coaching impact employees?
Health coaching can be incredibly beneficial to our individual members and we can pick this up right where we left off on employer groups — with quantifying change over time. Individuals who work with health coaches can see the impact of their behavior changes displayed via actual health assessment data. For someone working on weight management, for example, seeing their diabetes risk diminish over time can be a wonderful motivator.
Motivation is probably the single greatest benefit individuals receive when working one-on-one with a health coach. Initially, health coaches provide a tremendous kick start. They provide the essential ingredients to encourage initial behavior change. This includes support and accountability along with tangible resources. They also provide perspective that helps people understand how long-term change starts with small steps toward realistic goals.
Over time we see individuals begin to take ownership of this motivation, becoming their own best health advocates. To maintain behavior changes people need to recognize they have the ability within themselves to make and maintain the desired change. That’s the power health coaches have to help people improve their health and wellness.
What is unique about health coaching at Security Health Plan?
As a health plan, we benefit from unique access to rich claims data and assessments, referrals from doctors, nurse practitioners, diabetes educators, nutritionists, dieticians and other resources. Other health coaching organizations simply don’t have these advantages.
Security Health Plan takes a proactive approach when it comes to overall wellness. We’ve been very progressive in this respect and that’s a great source of pride for me, personally. It’s a testament to the success of our program and the organization’s dedication to promoting health and wellness that our team of health educators and our network of health coaches continue to grow to meet the increased demands of our members.
About the expert:
Angie Pero is a Health Educator for Security Health Plan and has helped direct the exponential growth of this critical sector for the past nine years. Angie received a bachelor’s degree in health and wellness promotion from UW-Stevens Point and a master’s degree in health education from UW-LaCrosse. Angie worked as a health coach before joining Security Health Plan.
Learn more about health coaching services through Security Health Plan’s employer coverage, including member access to free and private support from a professional health coach.

