But those savings do not take into account the substantial amount the employer paid to set up the wellness program. When this is accounted for, Rand found that the average return-on-investment for the wellness program was $1.50 for every dollar invested in the program. 

While the ROI for the disease management program was $3.80, the lifestyle management program only yielded an ROI of 50 cents. Rand nevertheless credited the lifestyle program with reducing absenteeism by an average of one hour per employee per year. But that still was not enough to justify the program financially, argued the report.  

The lack of savings is partly attributed to the fact that improving the long-term health prospects for some employees doesn't necessarily save the employer money. Getting a young worker to stop smoking might not save the employer any money in the near-future.  

"You can't make the argument that you're going to save money today on something that won't happen for 25 to 30 years," Al Lewis, CEO of Quizzify, another prominent critic of conventional wellness programs, said earlier this year.

Lewis, a former Harvard economics instructor, has argued that testing every employee for the same conditions is a waste of money. He told USA Today that it can lead to false positives and unnecessary medication, which only costs employees and their employers more money.  

Lewis has argued that attempts to get workers to lose weight have not only failed, but may have backfired by demoralizing workers or enticing employees to adopt even more destructive health habits, such as crash dieting or fasting.  

To Lewis and other critics, the way to make wellness programs more effective is to reduce them in scope but tailor them more specifically to each employee's needs. That means that programs should be directed towards each person's specific risk factors, rather than simply testing everybody for cholesterol and trying to get everybody to lose weight. 

"Asking every 23 year old to get lipid [cholesterol] screening is not consistent with national recommendations … and furthermore adds to the costs," David Grossman, medical director of Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, told USA Today.  

But there is far from consensus on what the most worthwhile tests would be for a wellness program. 

The U.S. Preventative Services Taskforce only recommends glucose screenings for adults without symptoms of diabetes if they have certain risk factors, such as high blood sugar or a family history of diabetes, while the American Diabetes Association calls for everybody over 45 to be tested.  

Some argue that screening for "metabolic syndrome," which is indicated by a combination of five risk factors — waist size, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and high blood sugar –– is the most effective way to identify somebody at risk of heart disease, strokes or diabetes.