MyTotalHealth: Enriching the Whole Employee

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

Mecklenburg County works diligently to provide quality healthcare benefits for its employees, while maintaining employee affordability and organizational cost efficiency. To get employees more involved in better health choices for themselves, the County is focusing on a Total Wellness initiative which provides employees more information about better health alternatives, choosing a health plan that works best for them, and involving employees in more educational and health-related activities and/or events. Involvement in “myTotalHealth” enrichment is voluntary. The purpose of myTotalHealth is based on our belief that by “enriching the whole employee is to emphasize wellness and educate employees of their health plan choices”. Components of myTotalHealth include a rigorous communication and education plan, incentives for completing wellness activities, health and education classes in lunch & learn environments, team health challenges, and free health prevention opportunities. The County also introduced a Health Saving Account option (along with the already in place PPO option) as a choice for health coverage for employees. Site-located sessions were designed to explain our two health plan options in detail, thus allowing employees to determine which plan may best suit their needs. These sessions are on-going, providing employees the opportunity to better understand the plan they have chosen while also allowing them to discover how the other health care option may or may not be a better choice for them in the future. By the end of 2016, employee health/medical engagement through our plan carrier (Cigna) had increased by 11% overall. As Chronic Conditions account for 79% of the County’s spend, our plan carrier reported a 10% increase in engagement from our Chronic Care population. The Health Savings Account option for healthcare coverage was offered in November 2016 during annual Open Enrollment. At that time, 26% of our employees chose this option for their coverage.