Healthcare costs have been increasing at an alarming rate for the past decade. I refer to the Kaiser Family Foundation for a lot of the information that I share and I encourage you to look at their site as well.

The average premium on an employer-sponsored health plan has taken a 20% jump since 2013 and if you look back as far as 2008, it’s had a 55% jump according to their statistics.

The question that a lot of employers ask me is, is there a way to manage what’s going on. The first thing I encourage people to do is understand what’s contributing to the rise. We have a lot of consolidation of managed care companies, we have political and regulatory environments that we all must comply with, new medical technologies and the sky-rocketing costs of prescription drugs.

In addition, two big drivers of premium increase are an aging population and poor health. Some of these are preventable factors such as obesity and high blood pressure. To manage these costs, I am trying to engage employers in a number of solutions. Please read my following blogs throughput the month of June as I will be sharing different angles that I feel are worth your consideration.