Chapter 4
The age-old question, how do we tackle rising healthcare costs?
Unfortunately, so much is out of your hands when it comes to the cost of employer-provided healthcare. But the good news is that you can offset the unnecessary costs with one very powerful tool — education! C-suite leaders believe that 53% of healthcare spending is wasted due to employee confusion.
If that’s not catalyst enough, Beth Pinkerton nicely laid out the foundation for doubling down on benefits education:
To counter rising healthcare costs, employers should continue to provide education on preventative care and resources to help employees make informed healthcare decisions. Benefit offerings for convenience such as telehealth and concierge services may be key for some workers to get the right amount of care at the right time before conditions worsen and costs increase for treatment.”
Some of the tools that we have at our disposal to manage and offset these costs include implementing more robust wellness programs and requirements coupled with educating our workforce about inexpensive versus expensive medical access points (i.e., urgent care centers versus emergency rooms) and how more restrictive healthcare choices on the part of employers can save our employees significant out of pocket expenses.”
You need to have a benefits strategy and not chase costs. We believe in the philosophy of ‘benefits need to be benefits.’ Within that belief, you can design a program with offerings that benefit team members. It’s not a matter of containing costs. It’s more of what’s your tolerance of cost as to what you can offer as an organization. That leads to more creative plan design and benefits that employees can rely on.”
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