by Tony Chen

Most hospitals have some sort of employee wellness program. You know what I'm talking about - walking programs, smoking cessation classes, seminars for healthy eating, maybe even discounts to local gyms.

Clarian Health in Indianapolis is taking an unconventionally aggressive approach - they'll dock your paycheck $10 for every pay period your BMI is 30+. Starting next year, they'll dock $5 per paycheck if you smoke.

A few questions do come to mind:

- Do sticks work better than carrots? Maybe a better approach would have been to increase healthcare costs for employees by $15 per paycheck, and reward the non-smoking, <30 BMI folks with cash back. Same cost, but different mentality.
- Will this have a positive or negative impact on employee retention? Nurse recruitment efforts? Inevitably, they may lose a pool of employees and/or candidates. $15 every two weeks is $400/year, not an insignificant amount for some. Then again, maybe this attracts a healthier candidate pool.
- Will others try this incentive-based health, too? We'll see how many people actually change their behavior & how much costs are reduced. I suspect these type of programs will begin to show real ROI, and then the floodgates will open quickly.

What do you think?