The Secret Recipe for Increasing Health Center Engagement

Worksite, Network and virtual health centers significantly improve employee health and reduce employer costs, but only when employees regularly engage with available services.

For our latest webinar, The Secret Recipe for Increasing Health Center Engagement, the panelists discussed proven, data-driven strategies to boost employee engagement so employers get the most out of their investment.

The Panel

Marathon Health CMO and webinar series host Shelly Towns
Jenny Lowry, Senior Director of Member Engagement for Marathon Health
Beverly Ambrosio, PHRP, Benefits & Wellness Manager, City of Plantation, Fla.
Angelica Audiss, Population Health & Wellness Manager, MJ Insurance

Watch the Full Employee Health Center Engagement Webinar

Jenny kicked off the discussion by talking about how employers need to be highly intentional in how they address employee engagement. To achieve optimal engagement, she recommended a member-centric life cycle that generates awareness, so employees understand the value of the benefit, which helps to drive participation with available services and ultimately influences employees to become “raving fans,” who champion the services to their teammates.

To move employees through the lifecycle, Jenny mentioned four key drivers of member engagement:

• Leadership Support
• Incentives
• Member Marketing and Communications
• Care Team Outreach

“This wasn’t created in a vacuum,” Shelly added. “We ran a regression on all of our clients going back over 17 years and said, ‘Hey, what are the patterns for those who are seeing very high engagement? What are the patterns and how do we replicate that?’ When we have clients who are checking all of these boxes and pulling all of these levers, we’re seeing engagement north of 73%.”

Beverly talked about the importance of clearly marketing available health center services, from preventive care and lab draws to sports physicals. She said one of main reasons the City of Plantation enjoys a 96% engagement rate is a result of helping employees understand their health records remain private.

“One of the key components to setting this up was getting employees to understand that Marathon Health is its own entity, and their records and information are not shared with us in any shape or form,” Beverly said. “We made a point to share our aggregate reports with employees, so they could see we weren’t getting Joe Smith’s blood pressure reading.”

Angelica expanded on the need for top-down leadership support, starting with the CEO and upper management. “The more people you can get on board with the program and with the health center, the better,” Angelica said. “Then you have more champions in your corner and word spreads really quickly when people have a good experience.”

As the chat pivoted to incentive programs, Shelly shared a Marathon Health statistic showing clients who offer incentive programs see 60% more engagement versus similar cohorts who provide no incentives.

Beverly talked about the success of the City’s “3 Steps to Wellness” incentive program, which awards employees with a health insurance discount for completing an annual biometric screening, health risk assessment, and comprehensive health review. Employees who engage further earn gift cards and additional rewards.

Learn more by watching the full video.

Additional Content You Might Like

4 Steps to Building an Employee Communications Plan to Increase Healthcare Engagement

How to Improve Workplace Health with an Employee Engagement Strategy

Webinar: Strategies for Building Wellness and Incentive Programs that Drive Health Savings