Associations between health risk appraisal scores and employee medical claims costs in a manufacturing company.

BACKGROUND

The bivariate relationships between 18 health-related measures on a health appraisal and prospective medical claims costs were examined among 1,838 employees for three consecutive years.

METHODS

Employees were classified into high- or low-risk categories for each of the 18 health-related measures, and divided into high- or low-cost categories according to their averaged three-year medical costs respective to the mean of their sex/age subgroup.

RESULTS

Average annual medical costs for the 18 health-related measures were $67 to $778 higher for the employees classified at high risk. The high-cost category was statistically associated with high-risk status in 11 of 18 health-related measures with a high-cost/high-risk to high-cost/low-risk ratio of 1.26 to 2.50. The average annual medical claims costs were also significantly related to number of high-risk classifications.

DISCUSSION

This study provides strong statistical evidence that, regardless of age and sex, employees in this sample with positive behaviors cost less in medical claims from 11 of 18 health-related measures.