Health and Wellness Programs

Pre-Medicare Health & Wellness Program

The Pre-Medicare Health and Wellness Program for Rural Iowans is a program that has been developed with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and funded through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program, which will launch in early 2010, will provide health risk assessments, biometric screening, health coaching, and an array of online health programs and trackers to participants.

The purpose of the program is to provide prevention programming and early interventions for rural residents aged 50-64 in order to improve or maintain their current health status and save in short- and long-term health care costs before they reach eligibility for Medicare. Iowa Farm Bureau Federation members in the age category of interest, and outside major population centers, will be recruited in the first year of the program to participate. Incentives are being offered to the eligible population to initially enroll in the program, to complete the health risk assessment and associated biometric screenings, and to be active throughout the study year with online and community programming and health coaching.

The program follows the ICCC approach to population prevention and health improvement which focuses upon achieving zero trend related to health risk and health status for engaged individuals. The unique aspect of the program is that is provided independent of a traditional employer-based wellness program.

Comprehensive Wellness Assessment

ICCC is partnering with the State of Iowa to improve the health status and reduce the future health risks of Iowa Medicaid participants by engaging them in a Comprehensive Wellness Assessment soon after they enroll in Medicaid.

The Comprehensive Wellness Assessment consists of three components:

  1. The Health Risk Appraisal (HRA)
  2. The Well Health Medical Exam
  3. The Health Action Plan (HAP)

Together, these three components provide a motivational environment by which the member can be educated about their current health status, and begin to self-manage health risk areas. The Health Action Plan will allow them to focus on priority risk factors, and offer further support through referrals to the Health Care Initiatives program. The data gathered by the HRA provides a proactive tool to identify targeted members who would benefit from being directed to one of the planned Health Care Initiatives.

The HRA is designed as a valued added tool or strategy providing benefits as detailed below. Each of these benefits has a distinct outcome orientation.

  • Provides personalized evidence based health recommendations which prompt and promote individual health responsibility.
  • Provides aggregate population descriptive and health data upon which other programs can be planned and smartly targeted. Examples: risk management data such as smoking, weight, etc.; chronic disease risk stratification; and, potential for personal change.
  • Provides evidence based information to physicians and other health care professionals to be used as the basis for a personal health action plan.
  • Provides health risk and status data, at points in time, to authenticate the value of program interventions for the population.
  • Improves the capacity to build and operate the Iowa Medicaid program as a "smart" health plan.

The deployment of the Comprehensive Wellness Assessment assists the Iowa Medicaid program to meet another important goal - that of identifying a medical home for each participant. The combination of taking the HRA, completing the well health medical exam and receiving an individualized health action plan encourages the development of a trusting patient-physician relationship.

The CWA program has been authorized by the Iowa General Assembly and awaits deployment by Iowa Medicaid Enterprise.

Employee Wellness Programs

ICCC provides consultation to employers and other wellness program providers on the deployment of health risk assessments and the planning of health improvement activities for their employee populations. For more information on these services please contact ICCC through the contact numbers provided on this site.