| Most employers understand that they can’t cost shift their way out of double-digit increases in health insurance and realize they must promote healthy behaviors among their workers if they are to find a lasting solution, according to a survey by the Integrated Benefits Institute.
Over the next five years, 85 percent of 620 employers surveyed by the Institute want to link health and group medical data to employee absence, disability, lost productivity and company financial performance.
More than 60 percent of employers want to manage employee absence, disability and worker health as a long-term strategy to control health care costs.
“The majority of employers understand they must manage health issues among their employees and want to promote more worker responsibility in making health care decisions,” says Thomas Perry, the institute’s president.
“For them, cost-shifting is simply a Band-Aid until better ways of assuring a health, productive workforce can be implemented.”. | 
