Cost Savings
How Tobacco Cessation Cuts Costs
Over time, tobacco-use cessation benefits generate financial revenues for
employers in four ways:
- Reduced health care costs
- Reduced absenteeism
- Increased on-the-job productivity
- Reduced life insurance costs
- Benefits realized more immediately include:
- Increases in employee productivity
- Reductions in smoking attributed neonatal health care costs
Employers who provide a smoke-free workplace may also realize savings on
fire insurance and costs related to items such as ventilation services
and property repair and upkeep.
How Much Do Cessation Benefits Cost? Are They Cost-Effective?
Instituting a tobacco cessation program at your workplace can save you
money. Tobacco cessation is more cost-effective than other common and
covered disease prevention interventions, such as the treatment of
hypertension and high blood cholesterol.
Cost analyses have shown tobacco cessation benefits to be either
cost-saving or cost-neutral.
Overall, cost/expenditure to employers equalizes at three years; benefits
exceed costs by year five.
Costs for comprehensive tobacco cessation benefits are between 10 and 40
cents per member per month (costs vary based on utilization and
dependent coverage). In contrast, the annual cost to the employer of
tobacco use is about $3,283 per year in medical costs, plus lost
productivity.
Saving
Money and Improving Employee Health (PDF, 135 KB)
Employee
Smoking Costs Employers (PDF, 139 KB)
QuitlineNC Partnership Plan
(PDF, 247 KB)
NC State Health Plan
Success Story (PDF, 532 KB)
Does Health Care Reform Change How Tobacco Cessation Is Covered?
As of Sept.23, 2010, new health plans in which an individual has enrolled
since March 2010 are required to cover tobacco cessation counseling and
medications with no co-pay or deductible. As of Oct. 1, 2010, all state
Medicaid programs are required to cover cessation benefits for pregnant
women with no cost-sharing.
Questions to
Ask Insurance Plans (PDF, 129 KB)
QuitlineNC Partnership
Plan (PDF, 247 KB)
