Why You Should Offer Employee Health Screenings
Onsite health screenings can be a valuable tool to proactively care for employees.
- By Michele D. Smith
- Jun 01, 2022
Routine medical check-ups are an essential part of maintaining optimal health year after year, but many Americans only head to the doctor’s office after a problem arises. A third of U.S. adults reported that they or their family put off medical care because of costs in 2019. That trend has continued to rise over the last two years as many Americans delayed medical care during the Covid-19 pandemic.
When people skip valuable preventive care visits, it could lead to more serious illness in the future and, in turn, higher medical costs when care can no longer be avoided. Chronic conditions like high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer need to be detected and treated as early as possible for the best outcomes.
Today, employers can play an important role in encouraging workers to proactively care for their health and well-being. Onsite health screenings are a valuable tool to ensure workers are routinely receiving preventive care and managing both chronic and acute conditions so they remain in the best health to perform their job. Here are three reasons why employers should offer routine employee health screenings.
Routine Screenings Help Keep Workers at Their Healthiest
Providing health screenings for employees combats reactive health care, giving employees the opportunity to be tested for underlying or chronic conditions and start on a path toward treatment if necessary. There are a variety of screenings employers can offer to workers in the workplace, including but not limited to biometric screenings such as body mass index, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol checks. Such examples of screenings assist with the detection of hypertension, diabetes and risk for heart disease via the Framingham risk score. There are even measures to screen for some cancers in the workplace. The employee’s results are provided within minutes with appropriate counseling on next steps for further testing or treatment from primary physicians.
The greatest benefit of health screenings is early detection. One in 5 Americans living with diabetes don’t know they have the condition, according to the CDC, and on top of that, 8 in 10 U.S. adults with prediabetes don’t know they have it. Screenings provide valuable information that onsite clinicians can use to help employees either prevent chronic conditions or manage them through healthy choices and treatment. For example, if an employee is showing prediabetic blood sugar levels, an onsite clinician can make lifestyle suggestions that the worker can begin implementing that same day. Onsite clinicians can even set up future screenings for employees to monitor levels.
This article originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.