The healthcare industry is changing at a rapid pace, and it can be hard to keep up as an employer in order to minimize costs and maximize the well-being of your employees. That’s why it’s worth considering where healthcare is likely to go and what steps you can take today to set yourself up for success in the future.
Let’s examine how the healthcare industry is changing and key ways to prepare your company for the future of healthcare:
• Become a better healthcare consumer • Adopt telemedicine • Empower and engage employees • Embrace wellness
Healthcare: Where it is Now and Where it is Heading
The entire healthcare industry, and insurance in particular, has changed drastically over the past two decades. Consolidation, rising costs, technology, and government action have all contributed to a turbulent and challenging healthcare marketplace for employers.
At the beginning of the millennium, comprehensive insurance plans with low deductibles were still commonplace, but they ultimately failed due to the lack of an incentive for employees to reduce spending – which was especially vital after the recession. Insurance companies tried to solve the issue through carrier-managed plans which controlled access to care to reduce costs, but these plans proved extremely unpopular. As a result, carriers and employers are turning to consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) to increase cost-sharing and decrease spending. The most common type of CDHPs are high-deductible plans paired with tax-deductible health savings accounts, which keep premiums low and give employees significant control over their healthcare costs.
The problem with these plans is that, while they provide employees with an incentive to manage and reduce their costs, the plans do not provide them with the tools they need to do so effectively. The rest of the healthcare pipeline, including employers, are struggling to catch up with ways to reduce costs and empower employees now that more of the healthcare costs lie on the consumer.
Throughout the healthcare industry, the focus is on cutting costs and increasing efficiency – resulting in the formation of conglomerates. The lines between insurance carriers, brokers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, and providers are all becoming more blurred. The most prominent recent mergers have been between insurers and PBMs; Aetna recently merged with CVS Health and Cigna purchased Express Scripts.
There is good reason to believe that this trend of consolidation will continue, and that major companies not historically associated with healthcare will get involved. Amazon has made it clear that it intends to enter the healthcare arena, partnering with reinsurers Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan and purchasing the prescription delivery service PillPack. As with so many other industries, Amazon is likely to change the way that the healthcare industry functions and take over a lion’s share of the market in the process. And once it has, it is likely that other tech giants will follow suit.
The current trend of consolidation and CDHPs are moving the industry towards a “direct-to-consumer” model, with fewer middlemen and greater focus on customer experience. There will be more opportunities for employees and employers to save time and money, but at the same time there will be an even greater burden of responsibility to be intelligent consumers. The more knowable the market is for consumers, and the more control that they have over their healthcare, the more important it is that understand it. Education, already a crucial and too-often-neglected part of the healthcare equation, will likely become even more vital to both employers and employees.
Employers have often borne the brunt of the burden of rising costs and an ever-changing healthcare industry. Future changes could cause further turmoil for companies that do not adapt quickly and effectively. However, change is not always bad news at all. You can set yourself up for success in the current and future healthcare markets by taking a proactive approach to your healthcare policies and adapting properly to every new development. The future is looking pretty bright – for smart healthcare consumers.
Become a Better Healthcare Consumer
In order to thrive now and in the future, it’s important to become a better consumer. The same trends that have empowered employees to take control of their own healthcare costs have also given employers greater responsibility for their own costs. So how can you meet this responsibility?
Education is the first step to becoming a smarter consumer. Knowing the ins and outs of the market, including which new options exist and could benefit the company and its employees, allows you to take control over your healthcare present and future. This is especially important when the relationships between every player in the healthcare industry are being thrown into turmoil. Proactive employers, armed with current knowledge, can negotiate better deals and carve out an advantageous space for themselves in the new market that is continuously forming.
An important part of becoming a better healthcare consumer is to take advantage all of the new tools that are becoming available that employers can leverage to minimize their expenses and provide value for their employees. For instance, mail-order prescriptions and other alternatives to traditional pharmacies can reduce your spend on prescription drugs. Modernized, alternative healthcare fulfillment will only become more common, so adopting them early will set you up to take full advantage of new developments.
Adopt Telemedicine
Telemedicine is perhaps the most significant alternative to traditional care that employers can leverage to reduce their costs while keeping employees healthier. In an age when offices are increasingly moving in the direction of remote work, remote doctor’s appointments just make sense. Plus, telemedicine is likely to become even more widespread and powerful, so making it part of your employee’s healthcare habits now will pay dividends in the long-term.
Like all other digital healthcare solutions, telemedicine saves employees – and by extension employers – time and money by offering a more convenient alternative to traditional options. It lowers direct costs by reducing the number of expensive emergency room and urgent care visits and is often even cheaper than a traditional doctor’s appointment. Also, employees commonly skip or reschedule preventative care appointments during work hours because they feel pressured not to miss work, which can actually lead to greater healthcare costs down the line (not to mention make employees feel mistreated).
Telemedicine also makes your team members better employees. Because employees can consult doctors from their home or office, they generally don’t need to miss work in order to get medical advice. And, because telemedicine allows employees to access the care they need more quickly, your employees will be healthier overall, raising their productivity when they are in the office.
Empower and Engage Employees
At Launchways, we strongly believe in empowering your employees to become smarter healthcare consumers. This is particularly important in healthcare because of the shift towards consumer-driven health plans. With the current trend of consumer-driven healthcare, employees need to be more involved in their healthcare decisions in order to minimize costs while maximizing their health. So, turning your employees into smart, proactive healthcare consumers can really set you up for present and future success.
Coaching and education are important parts of empowering employees, allowing them to choose the options that are best for their health and their wallets. Digital tools not only provide employees with the information they need to be smart consumers, they also make it easier to navigate the healthcare process – an important step in getting employees engaged in healthcare decisions. And engaged consumers spend a third as much on healthcare as passive consumers, according to the 2016 McKinsey Consumer Health Insights Survey. The same survey also found that 80% of consumers view digital solutions as the most effective way to perform many fundamental healthcare activities such as finding doctors and insurance plans, checking health information, and monitoring health metrics.
Because employees prefer digital options, they are more likely to take control of their healthcare decisions when offered digital solutions. And since digital options are streamlined and user-friendly, they genuinely make it easier for consumers to save money and manage costs through intentional consumption. Tools like HealthiestYou are already providing employees with one-stop-shop digital platforms to manage their healthcare. Just as Uber has revolutionized transportation and apps have modernized dating, healthcare apps make it easy for consumers to find the insurance plans, doctors, medications, and pharmacies that work best for their health and wallet.
Embrace Wellness
Wellness benefits are getting increasing attention due to their ability to reduce healthcare costs and make employees feel valued and engaged in their work. The cost-benefit analysis of wellness from a healthcare perspective is clear – the healthier your employees are, the fewer healthcare-related costs they will incur. Smoking cessation and weight loss programs are obvious examples of cost-saving wellness measures, but other health-promoting benefits can have almost as big an impact on your bottom line.
Because wellness benefits generally target lifestyle related health costs, they are often seen by employees as quality-of-life benefits. They show employees that you care about their wellbeing, which makes them feel valued. Given the challenges of high employee turnover and the difficulty of keeping employees engaged in their work, the morale boost from introducing wellness benefits can be a very welcome side effect indeed.
So wellness is important, but what exactly are wellness benefits? The first kind of wellness benefits have to do with physical well-being, such as: • Onsite gyms • Discounted or free gym memberships • Company-wide exercise or smoking cessation challenges • Nutritional benefits: eg. healthy meals and snacks on-site or access to a nutritionist
The second type of wellness benefits address mental health, which is an often overlooked area that can result in significant healthcare costs as well as reduced performance. Examples of these benefits include: • Time off to recharge: vacation time, sick days, “personal days”, floating holidays, summer Fridays • Stress relief breaks: naps, required breaks throughout the day, or even on-site massages • Meditation or mindfulness apps • Support groups (particularly for alcohol or smoking cessation) • Onsite or remote counseling
Wellness benefits can have a significant impact on your healthcare costs as well as your employee’s well-being and work satisfaction as a whole. If you’re interested in learning more about wellness programs and what they can do to empower your organization, keep an eye out for our upcoming article on the topic.
Key Takeaways
The healthcare industry has changed a lot in recent years, and there is every reason to believe that it will keep changing at an even greater rate. Employers have to adapt to face new challenges and accommodate new healthcare models in order to keep afloat. But by planning ahead and taking advantage of new developments, employers can define their role in the healthcare equation, minimize their costs, and maximize their employee’s health and well-being. Just keep in mind that a few key steps can help you manage costs now and prepare for the future:
• Becoming a better consumer by educating yourself, renegotiating relationships, and leveraging new tools • Adopting telemedicine to reduce direct costs and absenteeism and to increase productivity • Empowering and engaging employees to make them the best possible healthcare consumers • Embracing wellness to reduce long-term health costs and make your employees feel valued
Healthcare is an incredibly complex topic and there is no right or wrong answer for how to manage your employee’s healthcare. Every organization will face its own challenges and find its own solutions. But, hopefully this article has provided some insight into where the industry is going and some of the things you should consider doing for the present and future well-being of your company and its employees.
Prescription drugs are a major driver of healthcare costs
for individuals in general, and for employers specifically. Prices increase an
average of 4% a year and specialty drugs, already the most expensive category, increase by 21% per year.
Politicians across the political spectrum have put drug costs at the center of
their healthcare rhetoric, but little action has actually been taken. In the
meantime, prescription drugs have become the second greatest healthcare expense
for companies and represent roughly a third of total healthcare costs for
employers.
Luckily, there are several ways that employers can reduce
their spend on prescription drugs, including:
Educating Employees
Empowering Employees
Providing Employee Incentives
Using Restrictions as a Last Resort
Managing PBM Relationships
Educating Employees
The number one thing you can do to reduce prescription
expenses is to make sure that your employees are well informed about their
coverage, prescription options, and best practices. Education is free, for the
most part, and will not only reduce costs but will also make employees feel
better about their benefits packages. Many employees feel that their companies
do not sufficiently explain their benefits and coverage, so they will
appreciate any effort to provide them with more information.
Most importantly, educate your employees about best
practices that will save themselves and, by extension, the company money. This
includes telling them about preferred pharmacies, generic alternatives,
mail-order services, and other cost-saving options. Healthcare costs are a
major source of stress for employees as well as employers, so telling employees
what they can do to cut costs will often be enough to cut your expenses
significantly.
You should also make sure that your employees understand
their coverage and the tools that are available to them. In the next few
sections we will explore various structures and tools you can use to reduce
costs. However, they will only be effective if employees use them, so education
is still key.
Every communication regarding healthcare and reducing
prescription drug costs should be framed in the context of the benefit to the
employee. Hopefully all of the best practices and all of your policies will
help your employees as well as the company – so make that the heart of your
messaging. This can turn a potential morale crisis into a boost in employee
engagement. Your employees will appreciate your efforts to give them the
knowledge and tools they need to manage their healthcare and save themselves
money – and may not even consider the possibility that you are also trying to
save the company money.
Empowering Employees
While education is vital, it is often not enough. You need
to provide your employees with tools and resources to help them keep the cost
of care low. Best of all, these tools can be presented as new benefits, making
your employees feel valued and appreciated.
An easy tool to implement is a prescription savings card
such as Clever RX. Here at Launchways, we partner with
Clever RX to help improve the benefits experience for our client’s employees.
Clever RX cards offer increased savings at pharmacies and work in conjunction with
most insurance. Users save up to 80% on prescription drug costs and generally
pay less than most copays. More than two thirds of people can save money with a
prescription savings card, especially during an era of rising deductibles.
In addition to giving your employees a prescription savings
card, you can also offer them a comprehensive healthcare planning tool like HealthiestYou. Launchways partners with
HealthiestYou to offer our client’s employees access to quality healthcare
services at a fraction of the cost of traditional healthcare channels. Using
HealthiestYou, employees can search for nearby pharmacies and in-network
providers and easily compare the prices of copays/deductibles at each option to
reduce costs. They also receive regular reminders about benefits and savings,
and can review their coverage information at any time through the app, making
your job of educating your employees that much easier. Perhaps the greatest
benefit of HealthiestYou is their telemedicine platform. With telemedicine, employees
have 24/7 access to teleconference appointments with board-certified doctors.
With telemedicine, employees can receive prescriptions for common health
concerns with a simple phone or video call. HealthiestYou and other apps can
save your employees and your company time, money, and stress.
The last way to reduce healthcare costs across the board by
empowering employees is to offer preventative benefits. If you encourage
healthy employee lifestyles, you can avoid many costs from medical visits and
prescription drugs. An Employee Assistance Program offers confidential
third-party guidance to employees to reduce their stress, help them cope with
their struggles, and hopefully keep them out of medical harm. More importantly,
wellness programs can reduce “lifestyle diseases”, a major cause of medical
costs in the US. Fitness competitions, standing desk options, and access to
gyms or nutritionists either onsite or at a reduced cost can help keep your
employees healthy and off of prescription medications.
Providing Employee
Incentives
While restrictions should be avoided whenever possible, as
we will explore in the next section, you can provide incentives to push employees
towards prescription drug best practices. There are a few key incentives that
are effective and not overly burdensome.
First, you can create additional tiers of insurance to
enable employees opt-in for greater coverage. This can increase cost-sharing
significantly, and offering increased care is an easy sell even if it is at a
higher cost. In particular, consider creating a tier that covers specialty
medications. Specialty drugs represent 38% of prescription costs but only 1-2%
of total prescriptions, so focusing on them can often be the most effective way
of reducing expenses.
Drug formularies offer another powerful incentive to keep
the cost of prescriptions down. They are essentially lists of drugs that are
eligible for increased coverage and available at lower cost to the employee.
You can work with your insurance provider and pharmacy benefits manager to put
together formularies that best meet the needs of your employees and your
company. Formularies are effective because they do not reduce coverage so much
as they encourage intelligent decisions by offering additional incentives for
generics and other cost-effective drugs.
Using Restrictions as a
Last Resort
Many common cost-cutting methods punish employees, shift
costs from the employer to the employee, or reduce the level of care. When
there are so many ways to reduce prescription drug expenses that actually
benefit employees, restrictions should be avoided whenever possible as they can
cause harm, or at least inconvenience, to employees and damage employee trust
in your company.
Even the perception that you are cutting coverage can cause
morale to plummet, driving poor performance and high turnover as employees look
for a company that they believe will provide greater benefits. This is why it
is important to emphasize the benefit to the employee throughout the healthcare
conversation, and avoid policies that genuinely reduce coverage.
That being said, some restrictions are acceptable options to
use as a last resort when you need to reduce costs significantly or the other
methods have proven insufficient:
Prior authorization before filling a
prescription
Mandatory mail-order for maintenance medications
Medical justification for name-brand
prescriptions over generic alternatives, or make employees cover the difference
in cost between name brand and generics
Step therapy: allow employees to access the
drugs they need but require them to try more cost effective treatments before
stepping up to more expensive drugs
Managing PBM Relationships
One of the most effective ways to cut prescription expenses
is to work with a Pharmacy Benefit Management company, or a PBM. These
organizations negotiate with pharmacies, drug companies, and health insurance
providers to secure rebates for specific drugs and keep costs low for their
clients.
Currently, 65% of companies use a PBM to reduce their
healthcare costs. If you are not one of those companies, then you should look
into how a PBM can save you money on prescription drugs. But if you already
work with a PBM, you can increase your savings by putting your relationship
under the microscope.
The first thing to keep in mind is that you should never
sign a long contract with a given PBM and you should retain the right to
renegotiate the contract at any time. This keeps them on their toes and ensures
that they will continue to work to get you new savings. It also empowers you to
take matters into your own hands to correct any abuse by the PBM.
Once you have secured the ability to monitor and correct PBM
behavior, you need to actively manage your relationship. Examine your contracts
regularly and renegotiate whenever possible to make sure that the needs of your
company and your employees are being met in a cost effective manner. Also, do
not be afraid to research current trends and price compare with other PBMs to
make sure that your relationship still makes financial sense.
Key Takeaways
We have covered a lot of cost-cutting strategies in this
article, so here are the key things you can do to reduce your prescription drug
spend:
Prioritize employee education around your
benefits offerings
Inform your employees of best practices and
coverage specifics
Empower your employees to save themselves time
and money with tools like Clever RX, Healthiest You, and lifestyle benefits
Encourage your employees to follow best
practices with new insurance tiers and drug formularies
Use restrictions as a last resort, because while
they can be effective you risk alienating employees
Partner with PBMs to reduce costs, but
consistently manage your PBM relationship to maximize the benefit to your
employees and your bottom line
Work with an employee benefits broker
that helps you build and implement a strategy to control prescription drug
costs
In an age of rising drug prices, and higher co-pays and deductibles, many employers are cutting coverage to manage their costs. But the reality is that you can effectively reduce costs while helping your employees receive the highest level of healthcare.
Another open enrollment period has come and gone. Hopefully this stressful time of year went smoothly for your HR department and for your employees, but chances are your team is frazzled and your employees still have questions about the plans they signed up for. No matter how well you handled open enrollment, there are probably steps you can take to make things go better next year.
Why is it so important to get open enrollment right? Well,
according to Aflac surveys,
80% of employees believe that their benefits package influences their
engagement in their jobs and with their companies. Moreover, a majority of
employees surveyed said that they were likely to accept a job with lower
compensation but better benefits. Therefore, it is vital that you make sure
that employees have access to their benefits, are fully informed about the
range of benefits available to them, and feel positive about every part of the
benefits enrollment process.
So how can you make next year’s open enrollment period more
satisfying and less painful for everyone involved? All the answers you need are
in the open enrollment period you just survived. Take a hard look at the past
enrollment period to figure out what went well, what didn’t go so well, and
what you can do to handle open enrollment more effectively next year.
In today’s post we will examine the key components of a
successful open enrollment analysis, plus share a few best practices every team
could benefit from:
Collecting Data
Identifying Trends
Analyzing Behaviors
Creating Actionable Next Steps
Common Best Practices
Collect Data
The first step to figuring out what to do next year is
finding out exactly what happened this year. Hopefully you collected useful
information during open enrollment, such as employee enrollment rates or the
number of emails, meetings, one-on-one sessions, and calls between employees
and internal stakeholders regarding the benefits options. What’s important to
do now that the enrollment period is over, though, is to find out what
employees and internal stakeholders thought of the process in order to identify
pain points and preferences.
Some of the most important insights into your open
enrollment procedures can come from soliciting feedback from employees. The
best way to do this is to send surveys out to all employees who participated in
open enrollment. Here are some key things to ask employees about in the
surveys:
Ease of enrollment
Accessibility of information about benefit options
Perceived quality of benefit options
Areas for improvement
Preferred methods for enrollment and communication
In addition to talking to employees, you should also make
sure to send surveys to your internal stakeholders – namely managers and
members of the HR department – to see how open enrollment went for them. Be
sure to include questions about:
Success meeting enrollment goals
Processes that went well
Issues that arose
Suggested procedures for next year
Ways to make their job easier during open enrollment
Identify Trends
Once you have collected enough data, it is time to analyze
it to draw inferences that will allow you to plan for next year. You should
look for trends in survey responses that indicate either successes or
challenges during the enrollment period.
Some common trends that you may encounter in employee
surveys that you should take seriously include:
Confusion regarding benefit details
Dissatisfaction with benefit options
Frustration with the enrollment process itself
Things to look out for in your survey responses from
internal stakeholders are:
Answering the same questions over and over
Not knowing who to direct employees to for further information
Difficulty tracking enrollment/other systems issues
Analyze Behaviors and Processes
Behind each trend is a behavior or set of behaviors that
drove the end result for your employees or stakeholders. In many cases the good
or bad behaviors and processes will become evident as soon as you identify the
trends, others may require further interviews with troubled survey respondents
to identify.
The same trends can also have different behaviors behind
them that will become clear upon further investigation. Take, for instance, the
example of employee dissatisfaction with benefit options. You have a serious
issue when a lot of employees are not happy with the benefits offered to them,
since benefits are key to employee performance and retention. In some cases,
your benefits package may need to be reviewed and expanded. Most of the time,
however, employees’ dissatisfaction stems from not being clearly informed of
the full range of options available to them. Taking the time to explain the
options and how they provide for employee needs can nip this issue in the bud.
General categories of behaviors and processes to examine in
explaining each trend include:
Distribution of benefit option information
Communication structures and behaviors
Availability of resources for employees, managers, and the human resources team
Enrollment process – did employees enroll on paper or online?
Enrollment tracking
Create Actionable Next Steps
For each behavior that you identify in the previous step,
you should create actionable next steps to improve the enrollment process next
year. Think about how you can prevent the issues that came up this year, what
new practices you can establish to make the process easier, and how you can preserve
existing positive behaviors so that they do not get lost over time.
You shouldn’t put off implementing new best practices until
next enrollment period. Make a game plan for how you can prepare for open
enrollment over the course of the entire year. Set quarterly and monthly goals
and keep yourself, and your team, accountable to that schedule.
Let’s continue the trend/behavior example from the previous
section and look at some actionable next steps you can take to address employee
dissatisfaction with benefit options. The first step you can take is to
follow-up with survey respondents to find out exactly what they thought was
lacking in the benefits package. If it turns out that the options actually
include many of the things that they want, then you know you have a
communications issue. So, create a plan for how you can address the issue over
the time from now until open enrollment closes. This might include a monthly
newsletter featuring benefits options, establishing one-on-one meetings with
each employee to determine their needs and find the plans that meet those
needs, or creating a new benefits handbook.
Common Best Practices
Each company’s challenges are unique, but there are some
things that most people can do to make open enrollment as productive and
pain-free as possible.
Get Employees Ready in Advance
Take the opportunity to highlight your benefits package and
boost employee engagement by providing clear and positive information about
benefits options. Create easy to digest reference materials, make the HR team
and insurance brokers as accessible to employees as possible, and hold open
meetings explaining benefits year-round. Also, make sure that your managers have
the information they will need well ahead of time, because their team members will
come to them with questions as soon as open enrollment starts.
Establish Effective Processes
Track as many metrics as possible in real-time during open
enrollment next year, so that you can correct issues immediately and minimize
post-enrollment follow-up. You should examine your benefits processes every
year, but try to make your job easier next year so that you do not have to do
as much data collection.
Also, set up clear communication procedures and do not
deviate from them. That way employees know where and how to get more
information about their benefits options and you can avoid costly mixed messages
and wasted time.
Make Compliance Easy
Keep your team members happy by making ACA compliance as
painless as possible. The best way to do this is to take a look at how you
document coverage offers. If you don’t have a standardized, streamlined, and
electronic way of tracking coverage offers, it’s time to investigate different
software options. Record keeping is a pain, there is no reason to make your
team’s job harder. Also, make a plan for when you are going to send employees
information necessary for compliance, such as the Summary of Benefits and
Coverage and the Uniform Glossary. The more formalized the process is, the less
likely you are to let something slip through the cracks.
Communicate Year Round
Even if you have your open enrollment procedures down, there
are probably things you could do year round to make your lives easier come
enrollment time and provide employees with more information, more regularly.
The best way to do this is to send a benefits newsletter
every month or quarter, or to regular email updates on benefit options and
policy changes. This way, employees will have access to more information when
the time comes to choose their benefits, without being overloaded with
information all at once. The sad truth is that the majority of employees spend
less than an hour reading about available plans and choosing their benefits.
So, giving them information in more manageable pieces throughout the year can
help prepare them more effectively than providing more information than they
will use at the start of open enrollment.
Sending regular updates can also make your internal
stakeholders’ jobs easier too. It can be hard to record all of the policy
changes that occurred over the past year; newsletters give you a reason to
record the changes over the course of the year rather than all at once when
open enrollment is approaching. The newsletters or emails will also become
valuable resources for your team to direct employees to in order to answer
common questions.
Key Takeaways
In this post we have explored how to analyze your processes to
make sure open enrollment gives you less of a headache next year. Some key
takeaways include:
Track data during open enrollment and collect information from employees using surveys
Identify issues and successes from last year
Figure out the behaviors and processes behind the trends
Create a plan for next year to correct the bad and improve on the good
What practices has your company implemented to make open
enrollment easier and more successful? Share your tips in the comments below.
Open enrollment season can be a stressful time of year, but it doesn’t have to be. The team at Launchways has put together an open enrollment checklist that will help make sure your team has a smooth enrollment experience.
Planning ahead for enrollment season
Conduct employee surveys to determine workforce healthcare and benefits preferences. Leverage survey results to make relevant changes/additions to your benefits program.
Consider offering additional benefits beyond healthcare and life insurance. These might include telemedicine, a student loan assistance program, employee discount program, or a financial wellness platform.
Consider offering new benefits, even if they’re 100% voluntary. Many employees highly value the option to partake in voluntary benefits.
Work proactively with your broker on plan design changes to ensure all changes are completed well in advance of open enrollment time.
Consider leveraging an online benefits enrollment software. Benefits administration software allows your enrollment to go paperless and provides educational tips to help your employees pick the right plan for their family’s needs.
Make a list of all new changes that will enhance your benefits program and/or enrollment process. Make a plan to communicate these key highlights with your team.
Create an enrollment communication strategy. Determine all the communication channels you will use and what materials you need to create for open enrollment.
Ensure your employees receive all the necessary communication materials including:
• Open enrollment schedule
• Statement of current coverage
• Plan-specific changes and rates
• Plan-specific summaries
• Open enrollment guide and forms
• Deadline for open enrollment
• Contact information for key contact in case employees have questions or need additional help
Plan Design Issues
• Confirm that your plan’s out-of pocket maximum complies with the ACA’s limits for 2019
• For HDHPs (high deductible health plans), confirm that the plan’s deductible and out-of-pocket maximum comply with the 2019 limits.
• Communicate any plan design changes to employees as part of the open enrollment process.
When in doubt, ensure the following key pieces of information are being communicated to your team during open enrollment time:
• Enrollment deadlines
• Where/how to enroll
• Healthcare provider information
• Changes from the previous year
Remember that the key objective of open enrollment is to get all your employees enrolled on-time for the benefits plan that’s best for their family’s needs. A strategic communication plan can ensure employees know when and how to enroll, and can even help them pick the best benefits plan for them. Keep in mind that minimizing confusion during open enrollment time is key. This is why proactively communicating plan changes is important.
If you’re interested in a more in-depth guide on how to conduct a successful open enrollment, make sure to register for our upcoming webinar “How to Have a Successful Open Enrollment.”
With the unemployment rate at an 18-year low, the competition to attract and retain top talent has become increasingly challenging. Millennials now make up 75% of the workforce, so tailoring your benefits program to their needs is important.
Whereas previous generations valued health plans and 401ks, the new workforce sees these benefits as standard. They’re looking for employers that are going above-and-beyond traditional benefits to provide additional value.
In today’s post we’ll explore several types of employee benefits that appeal to the Millennial generation. We’ll look at:
Financial wellness and literacy programs
Student loan repayment assistance
Unlimited PTO plans
Flexible work schedules
Opportunities for advancement
Health and wellness benefits
1. Financial wellness and literacy programs
Financial wellness is the ability to manage short-finances while also saving for long-term goals. The Millennial generation struggles significantly with achieving financial wellness. Research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that up to 61% of an average company’s workforce has fair to poor financial wellness.
Millennials are very concerned about financial wellness, with 64% stating they are stressed about their finances. With personal finance at the top-of-mind for many Millennials, it’s no surprise workplaces are beginning to offer financial wellness programs as a part of their overall benefits plan.
Research by Aon Hewitt reported that 77% of employers plan to offer some form of a financial wellness program in the coming years.
Some ways companies can approach financial wellness include:
One-on-one financial advice via a financial coach or investment advisor
Access to financial literacy apps or budgeting tools
Offering educational workshops, classes, or lunch-and-learns
401k education programs
2. Student loan repayment assistance
Research by Student Loan Hero found that having too much long-term debt was the top financial struggle of Millennials. Nearly 70% of college graduates have student loans, with the average undergraduate facing $30,000 in loans.
A survey by IonTuition found that Millennials are struggling to manage their student loans, with 37% of respondents stating they had fallen behind on student loan payments. The same survey found that 36% of respondents would prefer a student loan repayment assistance program over a 401k plan.
Student loan repayment assistance programs allow employers to match employee contributions to their loan repayments. These programs have the potential to make a big impact on the workplace satisfaction and overall wellness of Millennials, with research finding that such programs can reduce loan repayment time by four years.
According to SHRM, only 4% of employers offer student loan repayment assistance. This represents a significant opportunity for employers who want to become an employer of choice for top Millennial talent. Those interested in starting a student loan repayment assistance program can work with organizations like Peanut Butter, Tuition.io, or Gradifi.
3. Unlimited PTO Plans
Unlimited PTO, offering employees paid time off with no cap, first originated in Silicon Valley as part of the emerging startup scene. Startups offered this perk to help attract top talent they might otherwise have not been able to afford.
However, uncapped vacation time is slowly becoming more common. Many Millennials see unlimited PTO as a highly sought-after benefit that affords them and their families greater flexibility.
Research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) indicates unlimited PTO programs are becoming more popular. General Electric recently implemented a “permissive time off” policy, which effects over 30,000 salaried employees in the U.S.
That being said, current research estimates the total percentage of companies in the U.S. offering unlimited vacation time at around 2%. A survey by HR association WorldatWork indicates that only 1% of large companies offer unlimited PTO.
Unstructured PTO policies are seen as a large value-add to employees, while costing employers little to roll-out and administer.
4. Flexible work schedules
Today’s workforce is demanding greater flexible in scheduled work hours. Work-life balance is a number one priority for Millennials, and they believe flexible work hours helps them achieve it.
Flexible work hours manifest in many ways. Some examples include:
Day-shifting (allow employees to work 7:00-3:00 or 10:00-6:00)
Remote work (allowing employees to work from home)
Summer hours (half day on Fridays during the Summer)
Allowing employees to come in late or leave early occasionally without taking PTO
Flexible work arrangements allow Millennials to better manage their careers and their families. According to a study by Bentley University, 77% of Millennials say that flexible work hours would make the workplace more productive for people their age.
In fact, being more flexible with work hours can actually help your employees become more productive. A research study by Stanford found that when compared to employees with traditional work hours, telecommuters completed 13.5% more calls than the office workers, performed 10% more work overall, left the company at half the rate of people in the office, and reported feeling more fulfilled at work.
When it comes to appealing to Millennial talent, flexible work schedules are an important component of the equation. McKinsey & Company found that millennials are more likely to accept a job offer from a company that offers flexible work schedules.
5. Opportunities for advancement
Millennials are looking for employers who provide them with continuous opportunities for advancement and professional growth. In fact, research by Gallup found that “opportunities to learn and grow” was rated as the most important factor Millennials looked for when applying for a job.
Studies show that 21% of Millennials left their job in the last year to do something else, a number that is three times higher than that of workers from other generations.
Addressing the Millennial desire for advancement can help your company attract, develop, and retain top Millennial talent. Some ways that companies can get intentional about opportunities for advancement include:
Allow your team members to cross-train or work in cross-functional departments
6. Health and wellness benefits
Millennials want wellness programs, but not in the traditional sense. Previously, company wellness programs focused on initiatives such as smoking cessation, disease management, and weight-loss challenges. However, today’s workforce demands a more modern, comprehensive approach to wellness.
When approaching wellness benefits, employers should take advantage of apps and mobile-friendly websites to help engage employees in health and wellness campaigns. Millennials check their phone an average of 50 times per day, so incorporating technology into your wellness program is key.
Some ways to build a modern Millennial-friendly wellness program include:
Provide treadmill workstations or standing desks
Offer onsite fitness programs like yoga or Zumba
Provide healthy snacks through a service like SnackNation
Integrate gamification in your wellness program by sponsoring companywide fitness challenges
Leverage wearables and mobile apps throughout wellness initiatives
Provide mental health education and support
Offer a nutrition and diet platform such as Zipongo
Launch a stress management program
Offer discounted gym memberships or fitness classes via a partner like ClassPass
Key Takeaways
In today’s post we explored several ways employers can integrate Millennial-friendly programs into their overall benefits strategy. Some key takeaways include:
Millennials now make up a majority of the workforce
The Millennial generation is looking for more than a standard benefits package from their employer of choice
Financial wellness programs address the Millennial need for improved financial literacy
Unlimited PTO plans are a cost-effective method to appeal to the Millennial desire for greater flexibility in the workplace
Flexible work schedules address the desire for better work-life balance
Opportunities for advancement is the number one concern for many Millennial job-seekers; career-pathing, mentoring, and coaching are all great ways to address this
Millennials demand a modern, technology-driven approach to health and wellness
Healthcare costs are rising with an 8% increase year over year. One innovative method employers are using to control costs while improving healthcare delivery is telemedicine. Telemedicine is an emerging technology field which facilitates two-way digital communications between patients and doctors. While a few years ago telemedicine was hardly on the radar of most businesses, it has become increasingly prevent in modern companies.
Since 2015, there has been a 26% increase in employers who offer these services. And according to the Mercer National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, almost 60% of America’s large employers currently provide telemedicine.
Diversifying your business’ healthcare offering will not only help you remain competitive in the quest for top talent, but also help you build a happier, more productive workforce. Telemedicine is a great place to start in addressing the changing needs of today’s healthcare consumer. In today’s post you’ll learn:
What is telemedicine?
How does telemedicine work?
What are the benefits of telehealth services?
How to implement a telehealth program at your business
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine, also known as telehealth, can be defined as electronic two-way real-time communication between a medical professional and a patient. This communication might happen over a phone call, video call, or even a mobile chat. With telehealth services, your employees can speak with a medical professional on-demand via computer, phone, tablet, or a digital app on a mobile phone.
How does telemedicine work?
Telehealth is simple to roll-out and even easier for your team to being taking advantage of. Through a mobile or desktop telemedicine app, an employee initiates an appointment. The employee can select a phone call or video call. The telehealth app then directly connects the employee with a board-certified doctor. The doctors collects the necessary information, makes a diagnosis, and overviews next steps for the patient’s treatment. All the medical professionals employees access through telemedicine are board-certified doctors and are fully licensed to prescribe treatment and medications directly through the app.
What are the benefits of telemedicine?
Telemedicine affords your business and your employees many benefits including:
Reduced healthcare costs for employees and employers. Unnecessary doctor and ER visits cost both employers and employees millions of dollars a year. In fact, studies show that almost 75% of all doctor, urgent care, and ER visits are either unnecessary or could be handled safely via telehealth. Research estimates that telemedicine could potentially deliver more than $6 billion a year in healthcare savings to U.S. companies. The estimated return on investment for a telemedicine program was about $3.30 in cost savings for every $1 spent on program implementation, according to the Geisinger Health Plan study.
Reduced absenteeism. Employees frequently miss work for doctors appointments or illness. Telehealth helps combat this by providing 24/7 access to doctors, on-demand. In many cases, telemedicine eliminates the need for in-person office visits for simple ailments like the flu, ear infections, and sinusitis. In one survey, 21% of patients said not having to travel to the doctor’s visit was the top benefit of telemedicine.
Happier employees. Research shows that employees highly-value access to a telemedicine solution. A recent survey found that of those who have experienced real-time telehealth communication with a mobile app, 80% prefer this method to a traditional in-office medical visit.
Empowered employees. Telehealth services help empower employees to take charge of their health. In one study, 53% of patients felt that telemedicine increased their involvement in treatment decisions.
Healthier employees. As with any healthcare benefit, better health outcomes are the ultimate goal. Significant research has been done to determine telehealth’s effect on patient outcomes. A study on the Geisinger Health Plan, found that patient readmissions were 44% lower over 30 days and 38% lower over 90 days for patients enrolled in a telemedicine program.
How to Implement a Telehealth Program at Your Business
Many healthcare providers are now including a telehealth program along with their healthcare network. Another option is to roll-out a dedicated telemedicine program through a telehealth app provider, such as HealthiestYou. In most cases, a dedicated telehealth provider has better technology and much higher employee utilization rates than the telehealth features rolled into provider plans.
The right benefits broker can help you analyze your existing healthcare offering and determine the best plan to integrate telehealth services. Here at Launchways, we partner with Teledoc, HealthiestYou, and Best Doctors to help our clients roll-out high-impact telemedicine programs.
Key Takeaways
In today’s post we explored what telemedicine is, the key benefits it brings your workforce, and how to roll-out a telehealth program at your business. Here are some key takeaways:
Telemedicine is an emerging healthcare trend many employers are adopting to attract top talent and cut costs on healthcare spend
Telehealth services give your employees real-time access to board-certified doctors via a phone, desktop, or tablet
Telemedicine can help your organization cut healthcare costs while also improving healthcare outcomes for your team
Many healthcare providers offer a telemedicine feature, but a dedicated telehealth solution typically has better utilization rates
Your benefits broker can help you determine how to integrate telemedicine into your benefits program
Is your team using telemedicine? If not, do you plan to roll out a telehealth program this year? Let me know in the comments below.
