With health care costs rising fast, it’s time to rein in chronic disease expenses

U.S. employers are projected to pay 6.5% more on average for employee health care coverage in 2023, a new report suggests, as worries of inflation materialize.

Not only are health care costs outpacing wage increases, but they are also poised to increase even more over the next few years, though the extent is still unclear. But while inflation is a central concern, there’s an even bigger driver at play behind the rising health care cost trend, which we aren’t talking about with the same urgency: chronic disease.

According to the CDC, 90% of the nation’s $4.1 trillion in annual health care costs are for patients with chronic conditions. The time is now to get a handle on curbing and managing chronic disease, by empowering high-risk individuals to stave off chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes.

The chronic disease slow burn

Just five chronic disease risk factors — including smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, physical inactivity and obesity — cost U.S. employers $36.4 billion per year due to missed work (about $1,685 per employee).

But these exorbitant health care costs don’t materialize overnight. Neither does Type 2 diabetes. Poor health is usually the culmination of years and years of health care neglect, coupled with the act of engaging in preventable risk factors (e.g., tobacco use), plus a combination of factors such as genetics and socio-economic challenges.

Often, individuals with the greatest risk don’t even know it yet.

About 20% of diabetics and 80% of those with prediabetes, still don’t know they have either condition. In fact, many of us who live with chronic diseases can be asymptomatic for months or even years before symptoms become more acute (and noticeable). Milder symptoms, like exhaustion, are so common that many people just ignore or learn to live with them. High cholesterol has no symptoms at all. Relying only on symptoms as an indicator of health can raise the risk of an individual experiencing a sudden adverse event or health care emergency, such as a diabetic coma or heart attack.

In today’s convenience-centered world, it’s understandable that most healthy, young workers with few profound symptoms of health problems would not feel obligated to schedule routine health checkups. If an employee feels “fine,” they are not going to want to use one of their limited vacation days to go see a doctor and they won’t think twice about canceling a routine screening if something more pressing comes up.

A long-term strategy for curbing health care expenses

Moving into 2023, there are three ways organizations can offset health care expenses:

• Scaling back employee benefits
• Raising employee premiums, deductibles, or other variable expenditure
• Find ways to decrease employee health care costs by preventing high-cost care, such as emergency hospitalizations

The first two sound easier, but they’re only short-term fixes. There’s only so much an organization can raise premiums or ask an individual to pay out-of-pocket for health care before workers start to feel the impact in their day to day lives. If employees, for example, must start paying $50 out of pocket or more for a wellness visit, many of them will skip that visit altogether if they feel “fine.”

The third solution — decreasing actual health costs — is a bold call to action and, admittedly, a more challenging goal. It requires focusing on reducing chronic disease.

However, with the right, long-term preventive health strategy in place, which incorporates the use of preventive screening tools that are convenient to individuals, organizations can empower individuals to make meaningful lifestyle changes. This ultimately leads to lower health care costs, and higher worker morale (research suggests unhappy workplaces can increase depression and heart disease rates).

Related: Health care industry prepares for a big hit from delayed medical care of chronic diseases

One tactic that’s part of a preventive strategy: The use of at-home health screening kits, which enable individuals to screen for risk factors like elevated weight/BMI, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose in the comfort of their own home. By providing access to sophisticated, at-home health screening tools on a quarterly, or even monthly basis, organizations are driving engagement by making preventive care easy and approachable

Headed into 2023, employers and health plans have a huge opportunity to tackle chronic disease in their workforce — starting with early detection. When workers can access preventive care easily, and frequently, they are more likely to see themselves as stakeholders in their own health outcomes.

Travis Rush is the CEO and founder of Reperio Health.