For decades, employers have made a conscious effort to improve their health benefits program to better care for their employees while improving their value proposition to keep and get the BEST talent. However, health care costs are rising rapidly, and your carrier has NO incentive to help you lower them. You’ll continue to see renewal increases annually if you don’t take full control of your health plan.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 82% of employees cite cost a the main reason they’re dissatisfied with their current health plan. They’re looking at their employers to control costs while still providing exception access to and quality of care. Here are a few ways you can achieve this in order to keep your employees happy and in good health.
1. Location Matters
We shop around for all types of purchases. Whether it’s that new car, your first house, or another cell phone, consumers are always in search of the best deal. However, this ideology is rarely applied to healthcare.
Encourage your employees to compare treatment costs before choosing where to receive care. Care costs are not fixed across the board. Remind them that the quality and cost of healthcare is inversely correlated. Higher prices rarely equate to better service, making lower cost providers a good option to consider. Crossing state lines to receive care can result in a significant amount of savings as well.
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2. Be Proactive
Healthcare doesn’t have a time machine – you can’t make any impact after it has already happened. You must construct your plan beforehand to ensure success.
Unfortunately, traditional BUCAH (Blue Cross, United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Humana) style plans don’t allow for much customizability or provide employers, nor their employees, with the data necessary to be consumers of healthcare. Without data, it’s impossible to make informed decisions about your benefits plan. Optimized health plans are structured to lower out of pocket cost for employees when they make better healthcare access decisions, aligning interest between the member, employees and their families, and the plan, the employer. The natural consequence is 10%+ in savings in year 1 with a 50% lower trend every year. Best part is that employees get better quality healthcare.
3. Education & Advocacy
Believe it or not, most employees don’t know much, if anything, about the basics of healthcare. This includes basic terminology, concepts of health care, or how to apply this knowledge. It’s important to get your employees actively engaged in their own healthcare. After all, it affects them and their family the most.
When employees understand the basics of their plan, they’re far more likely to make decisions that benefit everyone involved.
While not every organization has the resources to provide a higher level of education for employees, building in an advocacy platform in your health plan can help fill those gaps. Utilizing these professionals as advocates, and an extension of your HR team, will allow them to craft and execute an education program that is comprehensive, yet simple enough for employees to understand.
Employer-sponsored health plans are incredibly important to the employee retention and recruitment. While health care costs are on the rise, there are several ways you can actively reduce your overall spend and minimize, or even eliminate out of pocket costs for your employees. Prioritizing benefits education, being proactive, and shopping around will equip your workforce with the tools and knowledge they need to make sense of their healthcare. In turn, your organization saves money, while employees and their families stay healthy.
