3 Reasons Employers Add Custom Allergy Treatment to Their Health Plans
From a patient’s perspective, it’s simple to see why treating the cause of allergies is beneficial. But how does an employer benefit? Why would an employer want to offer disease-modifying allergy treatment, and what does their return on investment look like?
Though this often looks different from employer to employer, three main reasons seem to ring true:
- Less absenteeism
- Less presenteeism
- Lower costs
Less absenteeism
Allergy can be related to many different conditions — asthma, sinusitis, migraines, and more — that employees (and their dependents) experience throughout the year. By treating the root cause of the illness, the underlying allergy, these conditions can be positively impacted too.
After successful allergy drop treatment, patients feel better, keeping them out of the doctor’s office during work hours. Fewer infections, asthma and migraine flare-ups, and more, lead to less sick days and more productive team meetings.
Less presenteeism
Presenteeism is when employees are physically at work but are less productive and/or have lower quality of work due to, in this case, suffering through allergies. Treating the cause can help.
Once allergen tolerance begins to build and your employees start to feel better, they’re likely to be more engaged at work. Rather than working at a lower capacity through a bad bout of sinusitis at the change of each season, a migraine, or antihistamine brain fog, they’re clear-headed and more productive.
Lower costs
When your employees feel better, they may spend less time in their providers’ office or at the pharmacy. This saves you money in several different ways, including reduced:
- Office visits for each flare-up or illness
- Prescriptions that manage the symptoms, not the cause, of what’s making them sick
- Procedures that treat some, but not all, symptoms
- Replacement workers for chronic sufferers
It also saves the employee money on items they’d typically purchase out of pocket:
- Over the counter medications
- Copays for prescriptions, office visits and procedures
- Products for prevention including:
- Mattress covers
- Air purifiers
- HEPA filters
This cost calculator can show you just how much your employees could save by treating the cause of their underlying allergy.
As for the employer, adding allergy drops to your health offerings is straightforward and has few overhead costs. The small investment for the treatment (whether on your end or your employees) pays for itself when all those listed above are reduced. See how our Allergy Control Program could help you.