Good Health is good for business

1. C
huck Hays, president and CEO of
MaineGeneral Health Services, the
state’s third-largest health care system,
has no trouble explaining why it’s good
business for employers to take a proactive
role in helping their workers stay healthy.
He’s got MaineGeneral’s Workplace
Health department as an example. Per-
employee paid health claims for the sys-
tem’s 4,300 employees have been lower than
expected since 2008, with 2014’s $8,451 cost
actually being lower than 2008’s per capita
cost. Its most recent workers’compensation
MOD rate, a measurement of its workers’
comp experience, was 0.47, less than half the
1.0 average rate for hospitals. Employee ben-
efit costs have not risen for three years.
But for any stubborn skeptics who might
wonder how paying attention to workplace
health might work in a riskier, more chal-
lenging industrial setting, Hays says that
before there was even a shovel in the ground
for MaineGeneral’s $312 million hospital that
opened two years ago, the medical center
tapped Workplace Health to provide medical
services at the Augusta construction site for
upwards of 700 construction workers.
“It saved us almost $1 million in insurance
costs as we were building the hospital itself,”
he says, noting that the department installed
a medical trailer onsite, where emergency
medical technicians could quickly assess all
construction-related injuries and complaints
and provide immediate first aid — or send
workers with more serious injuries to its
Augusta office for further assessment and
treatment.That proactive approach helped
the project’s insurance loss ratio come in at
9.8% — far less than the 29% that had been
projected for a construction project involving
a 640,000-square-foot building.
In addition to the direct impact it’s hav-
ing on the health of hospital employees,
Hays says the Workplace Health depart-
ment is proving to be an “incredible asset
to MaineGeneral and our desire to help the
people we serve stay healthy and well.”The
Affordable Care Act has played a role in
that mission, he adds, by expanding coverage
for many prevention and wellness services,
including incentives for employers to provide
wellness programs.The business case for
February 22, 2016
VOL. XXII NO. IV
www.mainebiz.biz
R E P R I N T E D F R O M
PHOTO / TIM GREENWAY
MaineGeneral leads the way
in workplace wellness
B y J a m e s M c C a r t h y
Michael Tardiff, a co-owner and
director of communications at
J.S. McCarthy Printers, talks
with Denise Dumont-Bernier,
director of Workplace Health
at MaineGeneral, middle, and
Kristen Easter, Workplace
Health’s wellness coordinator
for the Augusta company, near
an eight-color printing press.
health,
business
Good
good

2. VOL. XXII NO. IVFEBRUARY 22, 20162
proactively investing in healthy employees,
according to the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, is based on the fact
that 75% of health care costs is spent on pre-
ventable diseases.
“With the shift of health care, in gen-
eral, dealing more with ‘wellness,’Workforce
Health has shifted more of its attention to
that realm as well,”Hays says.“We think
wellness is the direction health care needs to
travel — for everyone, not just for workplac-
es. I will tell you, though, I don’t think any
of our companies would take our Workplace
Health service if they weren’t seeing a return
on the bottom line themselves.”
Tackling workers’ comp
A for-profit center within the MaineGeneral
system, Workplace Health currently works
with 250 businesses in the Kennebec Valley
region that collectively employ roughly
20,000 workers.
Helping employers improve on-the-job
safety was the department’s primary mission
when it was launched more than 20 years
ago in response to Maine’s 1992 workers’
compensation reforms. But that focus has
evolved into the broader mission of assisting
companies create wellness programs for their
employees as an effective way of reducing
their overall health care costs.
“I run it like a business,”says Denise
Dumont-Bernier, a physical therapist
who was recruited to run the department
following a long career in occupational
health that included stints providing onsite
health care at L.L.Bean and Bath Iron
Works.The department’s profit, she says,
helps the parent organization provide
health care to populations that can’t afford
to pay for it fully on their own — roughly
$13.2 million in charity care, according to
MaineGeneral’s most recent financial report.
Core workplace health services, many
dating back to the 1992 workers’comp re-
forms, include:
ƒƒ Treating workplace injuries under the
10-day preferred provider rule allowing
employers to choose where to send their
injured workers if the injury happens
at the worksite, along with coordinated
follow-up care;
ƒƒ Pre-employment health screenings;
ƒƒ Drug and alcohol testing;
ƒƒ Ergonomic evaluations;
ƒƒ Maine Department of Transportation
exams.
“Not every business does post-hire physi-
cals,”Dumont-Bernier says.“The value to
the company is that it helps them under-
stand if the person hired is physically able to
do the job they were hired to do.”
Sometimes those physicals determine
the worker just hired isn’t a good fit for the
required job skills or strength requirements.
Other times they point to special accom-
modations that will be required under the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
“It’s really all about preventing work-
ers’compensation injuries from happening,”
she says, noting that many workers’comp
injuries occur within six months of someone
being hired.“It’s certainly an investment
worth considering … a back injury typically
is very costly.”
Workplace Health also helps employers
with a high “MOD rate”identify ways to
prevent workplace injuries and improve their
claims history in order to lower their work-
ers’comp costs.
Workers’compensation-related services
are paid on a fee-for-service basis accord-
ing to Maine’s workers’compensation fee
schedule, while the department’s wellness
services typically involve a two-year contract
based on numerous factors, including num-
ber of employees, number hours of coaching,
programming and the kinds of consulta-
tions that the employer desires. Programs are
customized for each employer according to
needs and budget.
Walking the walk
Dumont-Bernier points to Kennebec
Technologies President Charles “Wick”
Johnson as an example of a business owner
who understands the importance of invest-
ing in his employees’wellness and safety. In
addition to offering flu shots at work and
providing incentives to encourage workers to
participate in its voluntary wellness program,
the company has created an organic garden
at its Augusta plant and serves harvested
vegetables in its lunchroom.
Dumont-Bernier says Johnson has told
her the wellness initiatives have helped the
company “retain employees and attract new
ones.” “He truly believes in it,”she says.
“When it comes from the heart, you know
they are doing it for the right reason.”
She says Workplace Health can help
companies analyze their data to identify
health risks of their particular employee
demographics and then develop a wellness
program tailored to those needs.“It’s not a
one-size-fits-all program,”she says.“What
we try to do is help them develop a long-
term strategy.”
Dumont-Bernier and Hays acknowledge
MaineGeneral’s voluntary wellness program
for its 4,300 employees has evolved over
time. It began 14 years ago when the hospi-
tal went “smoke-free,”picked up momentum
10 years ago with a health coaching focus
and really took off with the opening of the
new hospital two years ago.
Built into the new hospital’s design are
stations where employees can take their blood
pressure or weigh themselves.There’s a teach-
ing kitchen where employees and the general
public can learn how to improve their diets.
Employees participating in the voluntary
MaineGeneral Workplace Health’s 5 tips for
lowering your company’s health costs
1. When hiring, take the time to fit the right person to the job. Work with an occupational
health provider to develop job-appropriate preplacement screenings.
2. Proactively focus on workplace safety: Injury prevention, ergonomics, training and education.
3. Choose a medical provider that understands occupational injury and illness. Build a
relationship with the provider before an injury occurs.
4. Involve your employees in creating a culture of good health.
5. Include employee health as an important component of your business strategy. Invest
the resources.
SOURCE: Denise Dumont-Bernier, director of Workplace Health, MaineGeneral Health Services

3. WWW.MAINEBIZ.BIZ 3FEBRUARY 22, 2016
wellness program get the benefit of one-on-
one sessions with health coaches.Through
Virgin Pulse, a division of Richard Branson’s
Virgin Group, employees are offered a free
bracelet that monitors how many steps they
take each day and encourages greater mind-
fulness about being physically active.
“We have big ‘carrots,’”Dumont-Bernier
says, noting that MaineGeneral’s voluntary
program provides incentives to encourage
people to attain their health goals.“We want
people to be engaged in their wellness. I
think the health-coaching piece is the foun-
dation of the program. Changing lifestyle
habits is hard.”
It’s not a given that all employees will
embrace wellness goals, Hays adds, half-
joking that when MaineGeneral removed
the fryolator from its kitchen he didn’t relish
going into the hospital’s cafeteria, knowing
that some employees weren’t happy about the
elimination of fried foods from the menu.
He was grateful there was less of an outcry
when soft drinks were later removed from
the cafeteria.
“It gets easier when people begin to see
the benefits to their overall health,”he says.
Ja m e s M c Ca rt h y , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r
wr iter, can be reached at jmccarthy@
m a i n e b i z . b i z a n d @ Ja m e s M a i n e b i z
Michael Tardiff, a member of the family that purchased J.S.
McCarthy Printers in 2000, doesn’t need a strong sales pitch
to be convinced that investing in workplace health and the wellness
of the company’s employees is good for the business. He’s got the
numbers to show for it.
“When other companies are seeing 15% to 20% rate increases
in their health insurance year after year, we’ve been able to keep it
stable for six years,” he says. “That meant we were able to keep our
employee’s share of health insurance the same … We’ve been able
to maintain a pretty stable health history. That’s a big piece of it. If we
can maintain a flat claims experience that really is money in the bank.”
Tardiff credits MaineGeneral’s Workplace Health department as
a key ally in the company’s commitment to helping its 215 employ-
ees (175 in Maine) stay healthy and injury-free at its six locations in
Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Most employees
work at the J.S. McCarthy printing plant at 15 Darin Drive in Augusta,
a short drive from MaineGeneral and Interstate 95.
Tardiff says his family sees the workplace wellness program as a
key way of keeping the company’s talented workforce healthy, happy
and inclined to stay on.
“We started our wellness program about 12 years ago,” he says,
noting that Martin’s Point provided that service until about five or six
years ago, when the company shifted to MaineGeneral’s Workplace
Health program.
The services provided range from employment physicals to health
coaching provided by MaineGeneral’s Kristen Easter, who spends 24
hours a month at the printing plant meeting one-on-one with employ-
ees to help them with personal health goals such as losing weight
or quitting smoking or work-related ergonomic issues. “We focus on
what they want to work on,” she says. “It’s different for everyone. It’s
based on what they’re working on. The big thing for me is building
that rapport and seeing the good health habits develop over time.”
Nutrition is probably the No. 1 healthy lifestyle challenge Easter sees
among the workers she’s coaching, closely followed by finding ways to
increase their physical activity. When top management supports those
goals, as she’s found at J.S. McCarthy Printers, Easter says it tends
to create “a culture of people around you supporting” those goals.
In addition to stabilizing the company’s health insurance costs,
Tardiff says MaineGeneral’s Workplace Health program has had tan-
gible benefits for workers that go beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
One worker, he says, successfully quit smoking and purchased a
motorcycle with money he had saved from kicking the habit. Another
worker had been encouraged to see their family doctor for a nagging
health problem and was diagnosed as having an early-stage cancer.
That person, he says, “is still working and doing great.” Several oth-
ers are now running half-marathons.
“It’s a completely worthwhile expense,” he says. “If it wasn’t, as
a business we wouldn’t be doing it.”
Focus on employee wellness pays off for J.S. McCarthy
Chuck Hays, president and CEO of
MaineGeneral Health Services, says
the hospital’s teaching kitchen is
in constant use by instructors
demonstrating how to prepare
healthy and tasty meals.
PHOTO / TIM GREENWAY