Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Dr. Eric Bricker, Chief Medical Officer of Compass Professional Health Services. We hope you enjoy Dr. Eric’s wisdom and perspective.

There are many buzzwords in employee benefits, but have you heard of “Health Activation?” While more common terms include “employee engagement,” “member engagement” or “patient engagement,” the industry would be better served to use a term like “Health Activation.” Why? Because Health Activation goes beyond a one-time event and instead focuses on empowering good healthcare decisions.

In the war for talent, any benefit you can offer that employees will find useful can help set you apart. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are an affordable offering to consider.

How am I going to pay off my student loans? Can I afford my increased health insurance premiums? How can I save to send my children to college? Will I be able to save enough for retirement?

Are these questions on the minds of your employees? Most likely yes. Financial worries are a growing concern for many people.

But have you considered addressing financial stress as part of your workplace wellness efforts?

Health care is always changing. It’s important to keep up with the trends – to not only ensure you’re remaining compliant but also to help control health care costs. Having an attractive benefits program is essential to recruiting and retaining the best talent for your company, not to mention being competitive and economical. So how do you know how your benefits compare?

With the constant evolution of human capital, it is imperative that employees, and leaders, are engaged at all levels. Have you enabled a culture that makes your team wake up in the morning and look forward to coming to work? Or are they simply collecting a paycheck? Talented employees can get a paycheck anywhere…everything an employer provides beyond a paycheck is what keeps them there.

There is no doubt that change and innovation are happening at a faster pace than ever before, in nearly all sectors of the economy. This is certainly true for workplace wellness. In fact, no one is even calling it “wellness” anymore—it’s wellbeing. Wellness is booming—it’s a billion dollar industry. With all of this investment, one might expect impressive results. But in reality, wellness in the workplace is at best, a break-even proposition.

Moving beyond the status quo can no longer be cliché…it has to become reality. The health care industry needs a disruptive innovator with a model that can be replicated and scalable, which is no small task since the best health care decisions are made locally. With collaboration between providers and those who are closest to the consumption of services (i.e. the employer, the provider, the patient, and the family), what has been thought of as impossible is within reach.

It’s human nature to crave autonomy. Parents of toddlers will readily attest to this fact—their little ones want to do EVERYTHING by themselves and will defy their parents’ requests. Because they can! This need to be self-sufficient is innate. No one, no matter their age, likes to be told what to do. When was the last time someone told you to do something and you were happy about it?

Traditional workplace wellness has focused primarily on the physical aspects - through on-site screenings, health risk appraisal questionnaires, and perhaps some health coaching and education. But physical wellbeing is more than that.

Gibson’s Director of Compliance, Shellie Goetz, shares her insight on health care compliance.

Health care compliance is made of many moving parts. New legislation, delays, and court rulings all have an impact on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how you, as employers, stay compliant. What changes in 2015 may impact you this year? What is on the horizon for 2016? Let’s take a look…