The 5 Most Expensive Health Conditions

Sure, you pay a lot for employees with cancer and heart disease. But those aren’t the ones who cost employers the most in healthcare coverage.

A major study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found these are the five most expensive health conditions on a dollar-for-dollar basis:

* Depression
* Obesity
* Back and neck pain
* Arthritis, and
* Anxiety.

Where some companies miss the mark

Odds are when tracking your company’s healthcare costs, you primarily consider factors such as:

single and family coverage premiums
doctor and hospital costs
prescription drug costs
the cost of wellness and/or employee assistance programs (EAPs), and
absenteeism or disability costs.

And when companies look solely at these factors, cancer and heart disease do appear to cost employers the most money each year.

But when it comes to chronic problems, the study found that employees who are in poor health, but not sick enough to miss work, cost employers significantly more.

How much more?

For every $1 spent on doctor and drug expenses for the chronically ill, the study found companies lose $2.30 in lost productivity for the ones who come into work when they are in poor health.

The study also revealed that wellness programs, EAPs and disease management programs pay for themselves in helping contain indirect costs and long-term direct costs.