4. Understand Eligibility and Identification Methods

Decide What Approach to Use

Once you’ve determined which employees are eligible for the program, you’ll want to consider how broadly you want to roll out this benefit. You’ll have the greatest effect when you engage as many employees who are at high risk as possible. For some organizations, this means promoting the program to as many employees as possible as quickly as possible. For others, it may make more sense to take a phased approach designed to reach fewer employees at first—sometimes called a pilot program. A phased approach can help you get comfortable implementing the program by learning from a smaller subset of eligible employees and then applying those lessons when expanding the program.

Using a Phased Approach

A phased approach can be crafted to meet your needs and can be based on your organization’s characteristics. For example, a multi-site employer that is offering the program in-person may start by promoting the program among employees at its largest location. Or an employer that offers multiple health plan options to employees may choose to pilot the program among employees whose health plan already covers this benefit. A phased approach may be most attractive to employers that:
  • Are very large, with a dispersed workforce, or have a lot of different types of employees.
  • Are administering the benefit through one or more health plans.
  • Want to understand how employees will engage with the program.
  • Need additional data to make a business case to leadership.
  • Have limited budgets.
For an example of how one employer piloted the National DPP lifestyle change program, read about the University of Chicago Medicine Case Study

Expanding the Program

If you begin with a phased approach, identify what you hope to achieve during the pilot period and plan how you will expand your program. The following three actions can help you with this process:

Evaluate the pilot program to help you decide whether or to what extent to expand your offering of the National DPP lifestyle change program. Identify criteria for participation and outcome goals in advance. Establish realistic goals and think about what you hope to learn during this time.

Questions to explore with a pilot program include (but are not limited to):

  • Will employees complete the program?
  • Will employees’ reduce their risk for type 2 diabetes?
  • Will the program achieve outcomes that are important to leadership?
  • How much will the program cost in indirect costs, such as staff time to manage it?
  • What changes should be made to improve implementation before expanding the program to all eligible employees?

In a phased approach, you will likely need to get buy-in from your organization’s leadership before offering a pilot program. Find out through initial conversations what they think success looks like. Engage program champions who can help set reasonable expectations with leadership about which outcomes are likely to be achieved through the duration of the program.

Timeline:

Conversations with leadership should also address the timeline for expanding the program. For example, if early outcomes (like program participation and changes in physical activity) are encouraging, you may want to begin expanding the program on a rolling basis rather than waiting for the first group of employees to complete the year-long program.

Budgeting:

Budget for the increased resources you’ll need as the program becomes available to more participants. If you offer incentives to encourage participation and retention in the program, you will also need to plan for this expense to grow.

Employee Communication:

Employees may hear about the program through their peers or through other forms of workplace communications. Be sure to clearly communicate your plans to expand the program to other eligible employees in the future.