The lack of competition impacts the cost of our healthcare. The premiums we pay for protection against our healthcare costs and the quality and the satisfaction have been found to be unacceptable.

The failure of today’s system makes it challenging for employers to offer sustainable plans. The employer is faced with the difficulty of navigating a complex and fragmented system, the soaring cost for employers and employees and the significant effort needed to manage a high performing plan.

Healthy employees will help the bottom line. In addition to cutting healthcare spending, healthier employees contribute to your company’s bottom line through increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, higher retention, better overall engagement, better safety results and lower disability costs.

The four ways that employers can lead this transformation are as follows:

1. Pay for value: Align the reimbursement with the value, not the volume.
2. Drive quality by delivering the right care at the right time in the right setting.
3. Personalize the experience by leveraging better data and technology to engage the employees in the right behaviors every day.
4. Injecting change into your system of paying more than they need to into health coverage and costs.

In 2016, there were reports that found 54% of employers have a company-sponsored wellness program which is up considerably from 2012. Not only are they growing in popularity, but the advances in medical technology can help improve the employer’s wellness programs and make them more effective at helping people keep their healthcare costs down.

For instance, there is tele-medicine, there is on-site medical clinics, wearable devices, on-site pharmacy, and more than half of these services has reduced the overall employee health cost. 61% of the employees interviewed agreed that they’ve made healthier lifestyle choices because of their company’s wellness program and healthy employees are happy employees, which makes your workplace more productive.

There is an increased demand for voluntary benefits. Voluntary benefits are an offering that the employer can make available to the employee. The employee pays 100% of the cost for these benefits on a group platform rather than individual if they feel the need.

With the high cost of health insurance and out of pocket costs rising, 79% of employees see a growing need for voluntary insurance as compared to last year. Voluntary products can include supplemental life insurance, disability income, critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident and cancer-insurance products which pay benefits when someone is sick or injured. These can also be expanded to include value-added services such as tele-medicine, fraud protection and medical bill negotiation.

A quality agent will take the time to invest deeply into your needs, your wants and your budget to find the right plan and the right fit for the least compensated employee to the highest paid person in your organization. Please call us, our consultations are free.