Your employees can miss early detection of diseases which end in acute events that can be very expensive. You can be falsely comforted by a low medical loss ratio only to discover that your employees are not going to the doctor at all. Create incentive programs for employees to see a primary care physician. Find out what your claims are and go after it. Invest in solutions laser focused on chronic conditions like Diabetes, GI conditions or Musculoskeletal-they are in the marketplace. On the other hand, adherence to disease management protocols and getting your employees to see a primary care physician will. Human resource teams spend time and resources to organize walking groups, Weight Watcher meetings and “Lunch and Learn” programming which can help morale, but likely will not reduce your claims. Second, target the claim costs that are driving up premiums. Make sure to ask your broker to consider a consortium and find out about average renewal increases, contract stipulations for entering or exiting the consortium, access to claims data and the availability of value-add programs like an EAP or a wellness platform. For social service agencies that qualify, my firm has a consortium called the Aging and Disabilities Health Alliance (ADHA) that has cut trend inflation in half. A local chamber of commerce, an affinity organization or common ownership structure can be the foundation for a consortium.
#Good steward full
First, consider a consortium to increase your purchasing power.Ī consortium is a multi-group arrangement that can be fully-insured or self-funded and allows groups the advantage of volume purchasing, more predictable renewals and full visibility to claims information. In order to accomplish this, the human resource teams, who are likely already overwhelmed, will need to work smarter, not harder. For a non-profit organization, those stakes can be even higher because you have to consider a board of directors, a philanthropic mission, public funders, your employees and a limited budget.
With a national labor shortage, it’s more important than ever to protect the quality of your employee benefit plans to attract and retain employees.