The Covid-19 pandemic and its economic implications have shown managers of organisations what could potentially happen if they do not properly protect the people who work for them.
Speaking to Enterprise, Magnitude Healthcare CEO Dr Alvin Lum says that in Malaysia, many organisations cover their employees in case they get sick or have an accident, but not many focus on preventive health measures such as vaccinations. His company is looking to change that.
Lum, who has 10 years of government service under his belt, says his company’s data shows that only 5% of the employers it approached were keen on a corporation-wide vaccination drive of any kind, unless it is required by law, such as typhoid shots for food handlers.
“However, during an outbreak, this percentage may soar to as high as 15% to 30% and fall in the ensuing years. In fact, the optional vaccination rates in Malaysia are as low as 3% to 5% for influenza in non-outbreak years. It is a very sad picture,” he says.
In companies that take on corporate vaccination programmes, there are two options being undertaken: site vaccinations and claims, or purchase orders with the practitioners, says Lum.
Curative medicine involves making a sick person healthy while preventive medicine involves keeping a healthy person healthy. Companies are reluctant to part with their money for the latter, which is not covered by most insurance and healthcare plans.
“Many companies do not reimburse their employees for vaccinations, viewing these as an accessory, rather than mandatory to health. This had led employees to request their private general practitioners (GPs) to doctor the receipts,” says Lum.
However, since the recent influenza and Covid-19 outbreaks, more companies have been contacting Magnitude Healthcare for vaccinations. “It is not just companies but also organised residences such as apartments that have come to us. We hope this trend will continue even after the pandemic has subsided,” he says.
Lum believes that when it comes to corporate vaccinations, where there is a will there is always a way. This can be seen in times of outbreaks like the influenza or typhoid, when many companies are able to find the resources to provide their employees with vaccinations. However, most of the time, once they have made up their minds, it is too little too late, either because of a lack of vaccines or because many of their employees have already succumbed to the illness.
It also cannot be ignored that the anti-vaccination sentiment is strong. Here, the human resources (HR) department can step in.
“Companies should amend their employee healthcare policy to make vaccinations compulsory. To mitigate risks of false claims, vaccinations should be held at the workplace and by a single company that also manages the employees’ healthcare profiles. The HR department’s ultimate responsibility is not to the employees, but to the employer,” says Lum.
Healthcare companies such as Magnitude Healthcare typically send in a team of two to three persons, consisting of a doctor and an assistant, who are able to vaccinate about 100 employees in an hour at a fixed cost.
The cost of an influenza vaccine, for example, is about RM90 retail. But it may drop to as low as RM60 for corporate vaccinations, with an additional fee of RM50 to RM100 for on-site services. A company with 100 employees, for example, would have to fork out RM6,050 for the whole drive as opposed to RM9,000 if the employees did the vaccinations on their own and claimed for them.
However, the setback is that the return on investment (ROI) for vaccinations is speculative rather than operative, says Lum. He adds that the issues faced as a preventive healthcare organisation is that the actual benefits may not be obviously seen or felt, except in specific situations, such as an outbreak.
“The ROI we are looking at is in fact the reduction in possibility of an office closure or even a disruption in the operations chain due to medical certificates or propagation of infection within a company,” says Lum.