HFMA NEWS

Health plan initiatives to promote health and wellness among workers are now commonplace, despite an acknowledged lack of evidence of an investment payoff, according to a study released June 4 by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). The study’s findings are detailed in a new HSC issue brief, Health and Wellness Initiatives: The Shift from Managing Illness to Promoting Health.

Much of the momentum for health and wellness initiatives has come from large employers looking for long-term strategies to address rising costs and to support their broader consumer-based strategy of giving employees more responsibility for healthcare decisions and costs, the study found. However, the investment payoff for health and wellness initiatives has been difficult to demonstrate, according to the study. Because many of the health and wellness activities in existence today have been introduced only recently and not yet evaluated, there is little credible evidence regarding ROI.

“Ultimately, the credibility of health and wellness activities to improve health and contain costs will depend on evidence demonstrating both health improvements and a positive return on investment,” said Paul B. Ginsburg, PhD, president of HSC. Read the issue brief.

Everything involved in the rating process is relative to other rating factors, such as market position, business profile, financial and balance sheet ratios, management practices, and local economic factors, according to a report published June 3 by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services.

The report, U.S. Not-for-Profit Health Care Sector: Core Ratios and Their Role in the Rating Process, describes the key ratios that nearly always affect S&P rating decisions. These core ratios are an essential aspect of S&P’s assessment of relative financial strength or weakness, which is further refined by weighing various qualitative and quantitative rating factors.

The report also explains how S&P looks behind the numbers to less concrete rating factors and uses its outlook statements to highlight situations where historically stable situations may be turning negative or positive. Also considered are how an organization’s future debt plans and average age of plant as well as its management and board’s philosophy regarding liquidity, debt, and asset allocation factor into S&P ratings and outlooks.

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