Employers of various size, geographic location and business sector are opening up on their experiences with value-based benefit purchasing designs. Two of their common themes: sponsors should engage in employee health promotion throughout the year, and support wellness programs to maintain employee health and reduce costs.

Many of those experiences and success stories are detailed in a new book published by the Center for Value Health Value Innovation in St. Louis, MO. The book, “Leveraging Health,” was authored by Jack J. Mahoney, M.D., M.P.H., chief consultant for global health strategies at Pitney Bowes, Cyndy Nayer, the president and CEO of the Center, and Jan Berger, M.D. M.J., strategic adviser to the Center. It studies 15 different levers of value-based design, such as chronic care and preventive care and choice of care delivery, that balance the health of an individual. They serve as a metaphor for plan designs and incentives to show plan sponsors how to make informed decisions on benefits and services for better corporate performance.

“By showing success stories [of employers similar in size and scope], you motivate employers,” says Nayer. “Value-based design is all about employee engagement and employer engagement. Without an engaged plan sponsor, you cannot expect an engaged consumer,” she continues.

WellPoint, a health benefits company serving approximately 35 million medical members nationwide, worked with the state of Maine to implement behavior-based design into the state’s chronic care module for diabetics.

The Chief Clinical Pharmacy Officer of WellPoint, Brian Sweet, B.S. Pharm, MBA, sums the firm’s advice in the outlook that employers should “do the right thing for the patient’s health regardless of what the cost picture [is] because the cost will follow. That’s where we are today as a company,” he says.

The program began in 2002 with the state covering approximately 2,000 diabetics, whose treatments were at one point costing $20 million a year.

By employing telephone diabetic education support systems, face-to-face interviews with certified diabetic educators and follow-up telephone calls, and waiving prescriptions for diabetes medications, supplies and other appropriate benefits, they increased medical compliance by 1% and decreased diabetic care-related costs by $1,000 per member per year.

It’s with success stories like this one that the authors of the book hope to inspire other employers.

“Today when we discuss health care reform, we’re talking trillions of dollars, but when [an employer] hears a plan sponsor talk about reducing a trend by 1%, it doesn’t sound like much, but [when he mentions] $1,000 of waste [cut from the plan] that’s a real number employers can grasp,” says Nayer. “Break down numbers to those that people can understand; you can’t track trillions.”

To purchase the book, visit the Center for Health Value Innovation, where you can also read additional case studies of value-based design.