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Higher Small Business Health Costs: The Smoking Gun
Accidents, fires, property damage, and air pollution are just a few of the consequences of smoking in the workplace that can directly affect a company’s bottom line. But, absenteeism, employee deaths, and higher health costs associated with the ill-effects of smoking on the employees who smoke and those who inhale second-hand smoke can be the most damaging. The good news, however, is that you can reduce the risk to your employees and the impact of smoking on your business.
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Coffin Nails, Cancer-Sticks, and Second-Hand Smoke
More than 440,000 Americans die of cigarette smoking-related diseases each year. What is more disturbing about that number, however, is that 38,000 of those deaths are caused by second-hand smoke . While people can argue that they have the right to do whatever they want to their own bodies, smoking is not a “victimless crime.” The smoke that is exhaled into the air by smokers as well as the smoke that enters the air from the tip of a lit cigarette is just as harmful to those unfortunate enough to be near a smoker. Second-hand smoke may actually be more harmful to a non-smoker because the smoke entering the lungs of a smoker has at least been dragged through a filter at the end of a cigarette.
By allowing smoking in your workplace, then, you increase the health-risks of all your employees, not just those who smoke. And, with increased health risks comes higher health insurance premiums. Smoking is an immediate red-flag to insurance underwriters and will almost always trigger the addition of surcharges on a typical health insurance premium. The reason for this is clear. Eight percent of all U.S. health care expenditures are related to smoking. That translates to $3,391 per smoker per year ($1,760 in lost productivity and $1,623 in excess medical expenditures) .
Read the Smoke Signals: The Message is Clear
Smoking deaths cost about $92 billion in the form of lost productivity from 1997 to 2001. The economic costs of smoking are more than $167 billion, when you add an additional $75.5 billion in smoking-related medical expenditures [i] .
More than twice the number of people die from smoking each year than die from the following causes combined:
· AIDS
· Alcohol
· Motor Vehicles
· Homicides
· Drugs
· Suicide[ii]
Banning smoking in the workplace provides benefits to a company that are recognized as soon as the first year the ban is imposed and can still be felt as many as 10 years later. Reduced health insurance costs, gains in productivity, decreased absenteeism, and lower life insurance premiums are just some of the benefits a company can realize[iii]. Right now, 8.6 million Americans are living with a disease attributable to smoking[iv] Even ignoring the statistics related to smoking deaths, given this fact is not difficult to see that health premiums will go down for you and your employees if smoking is banned in your workplace.
[i] CDC. PUBLIC HEALTH GIS NEWS AND INFORMATION. July 2005 (No. 65).
[iii] Warner, et al. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 1996;38(10):981-992.
Choose a Plan that Helps People Kick the Habit
Surprisingly, tobacco dependence treatment is more cost-effective than many common treatments routinely covered by most health plans. Simply put, you will likely save more time and money by encouraging your employees to stop smoking than by encouraging such life-saving wellness options as colon cancer screening, mammography, pap tests, and prescription drug treatments for hypertension and high cholesterol .
While you may choose to impose a non-smoking policy inside your office, or limit smoking to a particular room in your building, how do you encourage someone to stop smoking outside of the workplace? Offer a qualified high deductible health plan associated with a Health Savings Account (HSA). Your employees can then spend their tax-free HSA dollars on physician-prescribed smoking cessation treatments or FDA-approved medications for treatment of tobacco addiction.
Assurant Health offers HSA plans as well as another option that will help reduce your health insurance premium. Healthy Edge is designed for relatively healthy groups who typically don’t use most of the benefits they pay for and encourages your employees and their families to stay healthy by covering routine annual physicals, immunizations, and well-child care benefits. Once you have a group of healthy, non-smoking employees, this affordable health plan could be an option for you.
Clear the Air: No More Smoke Filled Rooms
While nicotine addiction and the physiological dependence associated with smoking is easy to recognize as factors that prevent smokers from quitting, a third, harder to see aspect is involved. Social factors play a large role in a smoker’s addiction. [i]
Here is where you can have a big impact on your employees. Effective treatment of tobacco addiction should emphasize problem-solving and extra-treatment social support[ii]. You can implement programs in your office to encourage people to quit smoking. Often, these types of programs are combined with an overall lifestyle improvement program that includes fitness and nutritional counseling, exercise classes, and organized sports activities. As an incentive, when specific goals are met — weight loss, reduction in smoking, etc — you can reward your employees with a contribution to their HSA accounts. The cost of the programs you implement will eventually be defrayed by the savings you will realize in reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, and lower health insurance premiums.
Remember, however, these programs should be designed in a way that encourages smoking cessation without stigmatizing employees who smoke. Increasing a smoker’s anxiety may lead to increased barriers to their quitting. Communication is key here; make sure your “smoke free” policies aren’t misinterpreted as “smoker free”[iii].
Some workplace smoking cessation program options are
· Self-help programs
· Group cessation programs
· Incentive programs Recognition programs
[ii] Halpern et al. Tobacco Control. 2002;10:233-238
[iii] Making Your Workplace Smokefree. USDHHS
Breathe Easy, Help is on the Way
The following Web sites can provide you with information and materials about smoking cessation
www.cdc.gov/tobacco
www.smokefree.gov
www.trytostop.org
www.cancer.org
www.lungusa.org
www.americanheart.org www.surgeongeneral.gov
Keep Your Employees and Your Business Healthy
We all make a thousand choices a day. Some are good, some are bad; some are no-brainers, some are mind-bogglers; some are healthy ones and some are not so healthy. When it comes to keeping your business healthy, make the right choice, contact Assurant Health.
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