As the number of employers offering high-deductible health plans continues growing, the spotlight recently has highlighted an inconvenient truth: some employees are going broke and filing bankruptcy because they cannot afford all of the out-of-pocket expenses and...
Despite many employers’ best efforts to improve the benefits packages they offer their staff, many employees are not satisfied with their health plans, according to a new survey. With the job market tightening, many businesses have upped their game in their benefits...
Company decision-makers have a wide range of choices to make that will ideally lead to better prospects for their employees and the company as a whole. The idea of an employer-based healthcare plan represents an enormous decision for any company to make, but one that...
As outlined in my book, Not Rocket Surgery, An Employers Guide to Controlling the Health Care Supply Chain, one of the most important roles of an employer sponsor of a Total Control Health Plan is messaging to employees. The fact is that the cost of health insurance...
In follow up to part 1 of our answer to the question, To Network or not to Network, we will be diving into the second primary selling feature of networks in addition to access, which is the discount. Anyone who has ever been involved in the process of shopping for an...
To Network, or Not To Network? That is The Question. Q: What do you get when you strip away the network from a health insurance carrier? A: An expensive claims administrator While certainly there are additional roles that insurance carriers fill, ultimately their...
Given enough information, most individuals tend to make the “right” decision. In the case of health insurance, all things being equal, the “right” decision is to go to the highest quality and lowest cost providers. The problem with health insurance is that rarely do...
Within the last two years I was working with a client with approximately 400 employees on their medical plan who was contemplating transitioning from a fully-insured plan to a self-funded plan. Approximately 6 months prior to their potential go live date of the...
Generally speaking, the “fixed costs” (administration, stop-loss/pooling, network access) represent 20% of health plan costs with claims representing the other 80%. As a result, it would be logical for those concerned about cost reduction to focus on the 80%,...