You can make soup with carrots, but you can stir it with a stick.

A few years ago, if you mentioned "value-based health management" to someone, you would often see a blank stare.  Yet today the phrase--and, more importantly, the concept--is becoming more familiar as employers look for new ways to make their employees healthier and more productive while lowering (or not increasing) the amount they spend on healthcare.

This week, CNNMoney.com published an article called "Unhealthy Habits Cost You More at Work." The author discussed how a number of companies are using both reward and reprimand to encourage employees to make behavioral changes--such as losing weight, exercising, quitting smoking, etc--that can help individuals improve their health (and prevent or better manage chronic diseases) and have a positive impact on healthcare spending.

Rewards, like gift cards for completing a health risk assessment or free smoking cessation products, are often used to encourage employees to take better care of their health.  Some employers are going as far as charging smokers a "surcharge" on their monthly premiums until they quit smoking.  While some of these tactics can seem excessive, employers are exploring new ways to design benefits that have an impact on health and the bottom line.  Carrots and sticks are both useful, but the key is for employers to offer support for employees to make sustainable changes.

Michael Wood, senior consultant with Watson Wyatt, summed it up eloquently: "The moral of the story isn't that healthy workers cost companies less money. When you make all workers healthier, overall health care costs consistently start declining." 

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.)