Good news: Employees admit they are willing to do more to improve their health and become better healthcare consumers. They also admit they understand wellness programs can help them get healthier and hold down costs. But here’s the rub:

Employees want some extras from employer-provided health plans before their attitudes and actions change about health care.

Recently 3,000 consumers (employees and their dependents) were polled by Aon Hewitt, in conjunction with the National Business Group on Health and The Futures Company to assess their perspectives, behaviors and attitudes toward health and wellness programs.

Here are the top six things respondents said they need from their employer-provided health plans in order to tackle health challenges and hold down costs:

1. Incentives (cash or non-cash) to encourage them to take part in wellness programs (60%), health risk questionnaires (58%) and condition management programs (50%)
2. A personalized plan that recommends specific actions they can take to improve their health based on their health status (50%)
3. Cost savings tips (44%)
4. A wellness website that acts as a one-stop hub for plan/program information (40%)
5. Personalized health tips and reminders (35%), and
6. Cost estimating tools (33%).

Tags: Aon Hewitt, Incentives, National Business Group on Health, The Futures Company, wellness