HR: Wellness Programs for Small Businesses
For many small businesses offering a wellness program to employees is a luxury that most can't afford. Provisions in the new healthcare reform law may now help employers who are stretching for resources. The reform law is providing opportunities to small businesses in an effort to boost the number of companies that offer wellness programs.
Beginning next year, 2011, the legislation authorizes $200 million in grants over five years to small business owners who initiate wellness programs focused on efforts such as nutrition, physical fitness, stress management and smoking cessation for their employees. The grants target employers with fewer than 100 employees who currently don't have a wellness program in place.
The grants will be administered by the Department of Health and Human Services and will be eligible only to companies that launched their wellness initiatives after March 23, 2010. To be eligible for the grant money an employer must be willing to offer the following aspects of a workplace wellness program:
In addition, the law will also provide incentives for these prevention efforts. Beginning in 2014, employers will be able to offer reward payments of up to 30% of the cost of insurance coverage (up from 20%) to workers who participate in wellness programs and meet certain health related benchmarks.
Although the grants available are not huge amounts of money- it's a step in the right direction in helping employers of small businesses who would like to offer and reward employees for engaging in healthy behaviors.
For information please visit:
http://healthreform.gov/