It’s no shock that with each passing year, health insurance premiums will continue to rise.To buck the trend, businesses are proactively joining forces with their coworkers,employee benefits advisors and health insurance carriers to uncover and address the root of their population’s health care problems.

To do so, employers are hosting onsite Employee Wellness Fairs aimed to educate,screen and help employees with the prevention, management and treatment of chronic conditions, ranging from heart disease and high blood pressure to diabetes. The events provide several benefits: For employers, the screenings and subsequent test results can help pinpoint existing and potential clusters of chronic illness within their population. Armed with this data (employee names are not shared with employers), employers and their health insurance providers can tailor health care offerings to help employees manage, treat and possibly prevent the onset of a particular chronic disease. With proper intervention, prevention and treatment, employers can help lower the frequency and cost of claims, thereby lowering their overall health insurance costs over the long run.

For employees, the benefits could be prove to be life saving. “By undergoing on-site health screenings, employees can discover if they are at risk or have a greater propensity for developing a particular disease,” notes Denise Angleman, Senior Vice President of The NIA Group’s Employee Benefits Division. “More importantly, the screenings may alert employees to emerging or chronic conditions that they didn’t even know they had, possibly saving their lives.”

According to Bob Medeiros, Senior Employee Benefits Specialist for The NIA Group, Employee Wellness Fairs have become a staple of NIA’s health and wellness toolbox and one of several innovative solutions NIA offers to help clients identify, manage and subsequently control their health care expenditures over the long term.

Most recently, NIA partnered with COSCO Americas, Inc., a global shipping company and longtime NIA client, to host “Wellness Wednesday”. The event consisted of wellness education and health screenings for high blood pressure, diabetes, prostate cancer, pulmonary conditions and heart disease combined with onsite evaluation and counseling for individuals diagnosed with or at risk for developing chronic diseases.

Held at company headquarters in the atrium, over 160 employees attended the six-hour event, popping in and out of the fair throughout the course of their day. Of those who attended, 100 underwent a complete health screening.

Overall, employees had fun – free massages, goodies and raffle drawings were part of the mix – and appreciated what their employer offered. “Employees were grateful for the convenience of having free health screenings done at work, saving them money on co-pays and time on doctor visits. They also appreciated the chance to learn if they were at risk for developing or actually suffering from a chronic illness – and for the personalized recommendation they received on the spot from professional practitioners. With any chronic condition, intervention at an early stage is important,” notes Medeiros.

COSCO Americas, Inc. plans to host future Wellness Wednesdays and will tailor the health presentation topics and activities based upon the health screening results from the inaugural fair. By customizing the event, they hope to provide employees with the insight, information and options they need to make wise health care decisions and lead healthier lives.

Interested in learning more about NIA’s Employee Wellness Fairs? Contact Denise Angleman at 201.336.1259 or dangleman@niagroup.com.