8 Ways Telehealth Coaching Can Drive Your Employees’ Welfare
Chronic conditions are one of the key reasons for missed work and drops in productivity levels. About60% of American adults (1)suffer from chronic diseases, while 40% have more than two chronic conditions.
While your employees are struggling to control these issues with apps and regular doctors’ visits, they are still losing precious work time. By taking advantage of virtual care, you can improve your staff’s welfare while cutting costs and maintaining high employee satisfaction levels.
1. Implementing Behavioral Changes
A big number of chronic diseases appears due to poor behavioral choices, including:
- Smoking and second-hand smoking
- Poor nutrition
- Lack of physical activity
- Alcohol use
- Lack of sleep
Improving an employee’s health and productivity levels is often as easy as adjusting behavioral patterns. Physicians usually don’t have sufficient time and resources to work on patients’ behavior, which requires regular consultations and supervision.
Telehealth coaching can solve this issue by helping employees implement behavior changes at home. Such an approach doesn’t just fight chronic diseases efficiently, it allows both employees and employers to save time and money.
Getting rid of poor habits improves productivity and contributes to a healthy workplace environment.
2. Boosting Employee Satisfaction
Top-notch benefits are one of the key reasons whyemployees choose to stay with their current employer (2). By exploring telehealth opportunities, you are giving your staff a highly demanded healthcare option.
Virtual care is gaining popularity. It gives patients access to remote specialists regardless of their location. When it comes to chronic condition management, remote assistance is especially important.
By giving your staff an opportunity to access telehealth coaches, you are raising employee satisfaction levels. This, in turn, keeps retention rates high.
Many growing companies struggle to keep top-notch employees due to the competition from higher-paying businesses. By offering telehealth coaching, your company can stand out from the crowd for its meaningful benefits program.
3. Increasing Performance Levels
Chronic diseases account for three-quarters of doctors’ visits. Telehealth coaching allows you to foster a healthier and more engaged workforce.
Telehealth gives employees access to the necessary assistance immediately, even when at work. This improves performance levels, reduces anxiety associated with doctors’ visits, and eliminates sick days due to appointments.
Research shows (3)that health coaching has long-lasting effects on patients with chronic conditions. Patients who received coaching assistance for 12 months enjoyed the results for up to a year after it was over.
4. Preventing Future Expenses
Chronic conditions require regular medical attention. Without proper assistance, they are likely to worsen over time. About 70% of healthcare expenses come from such preventable lifestyle-related conditions like diabetes.
With the assistance of a CDCE (Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist), it’s possible tokeep diabetes in check. This can prevent future healthcare expenses for your company and employees.
When you consider all healthcare expenses related to undertreated or mistreated chronic conditions, the numbers add up. Proper telehealth coaching and prevention options can help you keep the costs down significantly.
5. Maintaining Control
When it comes to chronic conditions, regular doctors’ visits can achieve only a fraction of the care needed by patients. One of the key components of chronic disease prevention and maintenance is regular control.
From measuring blood sugar levels to setting up exercise schedules, only a small number of patients are motivated enough to follow through. Telehealth coaches help your employees take control of their chronic issues by staying in touch.
One of the key benefits of implementing telemedicine is giving patients direct access to medical professionals and vice versa. By consulting employees regularly, coaches help them stay on the right track.
6. Creating a Healthy Workplace Environment
The health of your workplace environment heavily depends on the psychology of your employees. People with chronic conditions may maintain high productivity levels but lose their positive attitude in the process.
Telehealth coaching doesn’t just help patients adjust their lifestyle. Coaches work on a positive attitude. They help patients take advantage of their strengths to battle their condition.
Such an approach allows people to believe in their abilities and enhances the overall workplace environment. A healthy workplace environment doesn’t just improve retention rates, it attracts top-notch talent and sets you apart from the competition.
7. Improving Mental Health
When dealing with chronic conditions,emotional problems are often overlooked (4). Meanwhile, they have a serious effect on employees’ productivity. Discovering emotional issues in timely manner can help prevent further medical expenses, sick leaves, and problems with the workplace environment.
The stigma of admitting to a mental problem used to keep many patients from getting professional help. Telehealth revolutionized psychological assistance.
Telemedicine is a cost-efficient, private, and extremely convenient way to address psychological issues for patients with chronic conditions. Additionally, remote consultations can reduce employee burnout and catch depression or anxiety in the early stages.
8. Reducing Hospital Admissions
Chronic disease sufferers account for81% of hospital admissions (5). This increases the number of sick leaves and reduces productivity substantially. Frequent absences of employees with chronic diseases affect the workplace environment and put additional strain on their co-workers.
When telehealth coaches monitor the patient’s condition remotely, they can catch new issues on time and prevent hospital re-admissions.
Many people don’t pay attention to minor changes in their condition. By establishing a convenient line of communication with patients, coaches get an opportunity to monitor these changes and deal with new symptoms before they turn into serious problems.
Conclusion: Improving Healthcare ROI with Virtual Care Options
Investing in a high-quality health benefits program has a high ROI (Return On Investment). By adding telehealth coaching to your benefits package, you aren’t just increasing employee satisfaction and retention rates, you are cutting costs and boosting productivity.
Since the majority of your workforce is likely to suffer from one or more chronic conditions, telehealth coaching isn’t just a nice perk for employees. It’s a necessity.Sources:
- cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/index.htm
- shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/health-benefits-foster-retention.aspx
- healthitanalytics.com/news/using-health-coaching-to-improve-chronic-disease-management
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070773/
- fightchronicdisease.org/sites/default/files/docs/GrowingCrisisofChronicDiseaseintheUSfactsheet_81009.pdf
