How to Save 20% on Your HealthCare
Benefit Costs -- Guaranteed!
Nan Andrews Amish, MBA, CLU
Is your organization experiencing rising healthcare benefit
costs, in spite of HMO promotion and passing increases
in premiums on to employees?
Are your employees complaining about the cost increases,
while at the same time fighting with insurers over claims?
Would you be willing to experiment with a program which
would meet your needs for reduced costs AND meet their
needs for comprehensive coverage ... if it meant going
against conventional wisdom?
If you answered "yes" to these questions, then have hope.
There are ways to cut your costs and keep your employees
happy too!
Healthcare Benefit Trends:
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Consumer Directed Healthcare, with
HSA's (health savings accounts) playing a big role.
-
High deductible stopgap coverage. ·
More choices or a range of healthcare plans, and cafeteria
choices.
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Companies are slowly moving towards
defined contribution healthcare, just as they moved
to defined contribution pensions (401Ks).
-
Companies who are continuing to offer
regular health care benefits are passing on increases
in premiums, higher co-pays, higher deductibles to employees.
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Low cost, perceived high value added
coverages like legal, or identity theft protection
-
No benefit jobs (1099, contractors,
temps) are increasing, while full benefit jobs (w-2)
are decreasing.
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Defined benefit pensions, rarely offered.
-
Retiree healthcare is being discontinued,
will not be available for current workers.
-
Outsourcing of comp and benefit staff,
web-only comp benefit information.
Do these trends achieve their objectives in terms of
business alignment and benefit costs? Often only one or
the other of these is satisfied. Turns out the way to
decrease total benefit cost is about being truly customer
driven. It is about being employee supportive. And it
requires adopting new benefit paradigms. Are you open
to being contrarian?
Innovative approaches:
-
Contrary approach: cover MORE, instead
of FEWER healthcare costs. If employers choose to cover
more holistic and health oriented options, their overall
claims costs go down in less than two years. This is
because holistic, alternative and complimentary modalities
tend to be more effective and less costly for chronic
health problems. Self-insured models suggest savings
can be as much as 20% after two years. Morale and health
improve in the process. Innovative approaches integrate
this idea with organization-size appropriate funding.
-
Align health benefits, compensation
(and rewards too) with overall business strategy. If
talent is a major differentiator for a company, skimping
on benefits hurts a company. Positioning is Everything.
Mixed messages cost you customers, vendors and employees.
90% of employees say benefits are part of their career
decisions, and 50% suggest that benefits can change
their decision. Many are concerned about cost of health
benefits today. Most organizations intuitively appreciate
this, as they design executive health benefits packages
that are more comprehensive than their standard benefits
to attract and retain key execs. Talent and contacts
may be just as important in professional positions as
well.
-
Explain the impact of benefit choices;
provide solid value to employees, so they can make truly
informed decisions. (Contact us to receive draft copies
of our customizable web-friendly book, which is employee-friendly.
This book tells how to protect employers from lawsuits
from when they get over-zealous in terms of steering
employees into various plans.) Help employees assess
the financial impact with a variety of potential situations.
Help them choose benefits that fit their philosophy
AND their wallets.
A multi-disciplinary, "business health contrarian" approach,
combined with HR, benefits, finance and strategy expertise,
can save a company as much as 20% in terms of total costs
in less than 2 years. Higher savings are possible. I invite
dialogue about how to optimize your benefits for your
business objectives.
((598 words) Copyright © 2005-2008 Nan Andrews Amish. All
rights reserved.
Permission to reprint this article is granted, provided original
author is given credit, and contact information and mini bio
are provided as follows:
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Author: Nan Andrews Amish, MBA, CLU
Big Picture Healthcare
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Nan Andrews Amish is a management consultant,
facilitator and speaker with expertise in healthcare
economics and market research. Nan Andrews Amish
and Big Picture Healthcare offer facilitation,
member surveys, management assessments, tools,
workshops and keynote addresses to help associations,
leaders and teams increase their effectiveness
by seeing the Big Picture Perspective.
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The Big Woman with the Big Picture Perspective.
phone: 650 560-9800 toll-free 800 858-1750
www.bigpicturehealthcare.com
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