Talking with a foreign software developer here in Singapore last week, he told me his company’s health benefits have pretty good coverage when a problem comes up, but they do not cover expenses for preventative care. He did not just mean they do not subsidize gym memberships; he meant they do not pay for physical exams, cholesterol screening, and the like.

Now, that’s dumb.

If your employees only have health coverage only for when there’s a problem, that means if they are using their benefits, a problem has already occurred. That, of course, is bad for you, because it most likely means you have an absent employee, and so now you are losing productivity. Add in the fact that fixing a health problem after it has occurred is generally more expensive than addressing it before it becomes a major issue, and you can see that a lot of money is being lost that does not need to be. If your employees have publicly-funded health care, then hopefully that covers preventative checkups. Anyone in your company who is not covered by a public scheme, though, should have coverage that addresses health problems before they become problems.

Too many companies have a very short-term view on immediate profits, without considering how things will play out in the long run. Saving a few bucks today on premiums for coverage that does not include preventative care sets you up for lost performance in the future. You would not want to train employees on something only after they mess it up, so why would you want to only treat health issues after something bad has happened, when instead you could be dealing with it much, much earlier?

Dumb dumb dumb.