Depression is Costly
Researchers from Emory University…found that depressed workers — which make up about 11% of the total workforce — spent $2,184 on health care on average, which is about 48% more than their non-depressed colleagues.
People with high blood sugar had medical expenses that were almost one-third higher, as did people with high blood pressure. Obesity was associated with 27 percent more spending.
I bet drug reps are extremely happy about this study.
In the words of Dr. Barry Asmus “throw your feelings away, if you act happy you will feel happy!”
So in other words: if you’re healthy you spend less on healthcare.
Most people get their health care through work. Most large employers self-insure. As a result, I’m surprised that there isn’t more workplace discrimination against people with health problems.
I’d imagine depressed workers also suffer from a loss of productivity, resulting in further costs.
I wasn’t so impressed by the fact that depressed workers spend more on health care than the non-depressed workers…at the end of the day it makes sense that you pay more for care if you are more prompt to get sick. What did impress me, though, was the fact that the difference in medical expenses between the two groups was 48%. That’s huge! I wonder how much of these “depressions” are caused by the government and what it’s doing to people’s lives, and how much is actually caused by their jobs.
“An underlying premise of the Affordable Care Act provisions that encourage employers to adopt health promotion programs is an association between workers’ modifiable health risks and increased health care costs”
“These findings indicate ongoing opportunities for well-designed and properly targeted employer-sponsored health promotion programs to produce substantial savings.”
Looks like the ACA had the right idea on this. However, in an ideal world I’d like the insurance companies to be doing this on an individual contractual level.
I’d like to see this data — could it be that people with severe or chronic health problems are more likely to be depressed? Not the other way around? Food for thought.
Social Security Disability has some interesting data on it. Mental illnesses make up 20% or so of all SSDI. A large and growing number is for depression.
perhaps employers can do more to make their workers happy as a way of cutting health care costs. maybe?