Employee Health Plans Archives - The Reschini Group

Benefits Blog: Five Ways to Save on Healthcare Costs

It’s no secret that healthcare expenses have been on a steady, and costly, climb for the past two decades. Price hikes of 6.5 percent are projected in 2022, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic playing a significant role in those increases. This fact of financial life means employers must think both strategically and creatively about how to lower their health benefits expenses in 2022. Here are five ways to help achieve savings:

Control Drug Spending – Drug prices rise faster than any other medical service or commodity, with costs now 33 percent higher than in 2014, according to GoodRx. Employers can educate employees on the price differences between name-brand and generic medications, and encourage using generics to save money while still receiving the same quality treatment.
Encourage Active Benefits Participation – This includes encouraging employees to improve their health literacy, research treatments, and price shop. By seeing specific prices for procedures and other services, employees can educate themselves before making costly health decisions.
Offer Savings Accounts with Carryovers – Health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible savings accounts (FSAs), and other tax-advantaged savings account options empower employees to control their own spending and improve their health literacy. Many accounts allow for fund carryover year to year, encouraging more contributions. Since many employers match contributions up to a limit, more money added to these accounts means greater tax savings for everyone.
Embrace Virtual Health Options – A major takeaway from the pandemic has been the expansion of telehealth services, allowing individuals to connect with health professionals quickly, safely, and less expensively. Employers adding telehealth services into their plan expand access to care and lower expenses for everyone.
Consider Plan Funding Alternatives – A more drastic option for reducing health costs is restructuring how plans are funded. For instance, a self-funded plan may be more cost- effective than paying a monthly premium for a fully insured plan. Other options include level-funding or reference-based pricing models, each of which carries its own set of administrative rules and legal constraints. Funding decisions should not be taken lightly and should be based on several factors, such as size of an organization, risk tolerance, and financial stability, including employees’ ability to take on large premium increases.

Selecting the best methods to contain healthcare costs depends on each organization’s unique capabilities. The Benefits Team at The Reschini Group can help sort out the right option for your particular situation. Contact us today to get a conversation started.

Resources:

Benefits Insights: Preventive Care

Benefits Insights: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)

Know Your Benefits: Strategies for Saving on Prescription Drugs

The Reschini Group provides these updates for information only, and does not provide legal advice. To make decisions regarding insurance matters, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional or firm.

Benefits Blog: Are you an ALE?

The definition of what constitutes an “applicable large employer,” or ALE, can have a significant impact on how that enterprise must arrange for and cover the cost of health care coverage. Be sure you know whether your organization qualifies as an ALE in the eyes of the federal government, especially the Internal Revenue Service.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires ALEs to offer affordable, minimum value health coverage to their fulltime employees or pay a penalty. This employer mandate is also known as the “employer shared responsibility” or “pay or play” rules.

To qualify as an ALE, an employer must employ, on average, at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees (FTEs), on business days during the preceding calendar year. All employers that employ at least 50 full-time employees, including FTEs, are subject to the ACA’s employer shared responsibility rules, including for-profit, nonprofit and government employers.

A Full-Time Employee is an individual that works, on average, 30 or more hours of service each week. For this purpose, 130 hours in a calendar month is treated as the monthly equivalent of 30 hours of service per week.

Equivalent Full Time Employee counts are determined by looking at part-time employees. Hours worked by employees with fewer than 30 hours per week must be counted—and then divided by 120 per month—to determine the number of FTEs. The number of FTEs is then added to the actual full-time employee count

As you might expect, the definitions surrounding what constitutes affordable, minimum value health coverage can become intricate and technical, as well. But if you’re an ALE, it’s your responsibility to know the rules and abide by them.

Contact the Benefits Team at The Reschini Group for more information and guidance.

Benefits Blog: Technology-Based Enrollment

Open Enrollment generates enormous work for companies and some confusion and stress for workers hoping that their benefits choices for the coming year are the best ones for them and their families.

Technology-based enrollment, however, can alleviate a sizeable portion of those issues, saving employers time and money, while making the process more efficient and user-friendly for HR departments and employees. Here’s how:

Every step of the benefits management process is automated, eliminating the need for paper-based processes and improving efficiency and accuracy.
Online enrollment lowers the overall cost of providing services to employees by eliminating the costs of distributing and collecting paper enrollment packets. It also shortens the enrollment cycle.
Online enrollment enables employees to self-enroll in benefit programs, review their benefit data and report life-event changes.
Employees can choose plans based on eligibility criteria and can compare costs and coverage of previous elections against new offerings.
Elections can be automatically applied to employee records.
Employees receive written confirmations detailing their elections, and can easily view and update their records and plans.
Human Resources can check the status of enrollment in real time and may be able to generate detailed reports regarding the cost of employee benefits.

At the same time, some employees may be intimidated by an online option, preferring more one-to-one assistance. Also, some employees may not make informed benefit decisions if they are only advised via the computer and are not provided personalized recommendations.

To encourage as much online enrollment as possible:

Introduce new software and train employees before Open Enrollment begins.
Use existing resources (company’s intranet, bulletin board postings or newsletter) to promote technology-based enrollment.
Encourage management to promote the use of technology-based enrollment to increase employee buy-in.
Establish online communities or blogs where employees can discuss successes and problems they are having while enrolling.

Technology is a tool that can offer impressive advantages, but people must feel comfortable and safe for an employer to make the most of the opportunity. Talk with the Benefits Team at The Reschini Group for help in fashioning an Open Enrollment program for your particular situation.

Benefits Blog: Tips for a Successful Open Enrollment

Once a year, the floodgates fly open and a benefits bonanza begins. It’s Open Enrollment, a slice of time when employers make benefits packages available to employees, who must then sift through options on the way to selecting the best protections for them and their families.

Open Enrollment can be overwhelming. Employees can re-evaluate their current benefits and make  changes for the coming year, while employers must choose a  benefits package that balances cost and value and facilitate  the enrollment process.

Benefit  offerings change as new demands on employees  and employers arise. To make the  process as smooth as possible, employers must educate and communicate with their employees  effectively.

As employer-sponsored benefits transition to more voluntary, employee-paid or employee-subsidized offerings, employees must assume more control in making smart decisions. Benefit information should be conveyed in an easy-to-understand format providing essential information, along with any additional helpful resources.

The typical Open Enrollment process looks like this:

— Notification: Employers send out an organization-wide announcement alerting employees that open enrollment will begin shortly.

— Receipt: Employers distribute information about benefit plans, selection information and the appropriate forms to their employees, as well as information from selections made the previous year.  Employers may offer employees additional information as appropriate to assist in decision-making.

— Deliberation: Employees research available options and discuss with family to determine which benefits they will select for the coming year.

— Decision: Employees select their benefits.

The Open Enrollment process can be improved by:

— Establishing solid communication between the HR department and employees.

— Surveying the employee population to determine their priorities.

— Customizing benefits and information resources to the life stages of your employees.

There’s a lot riding on the process and the decisions made during Open Enrollment, but by taking some strategic steps, all parties can emerge from the experience feeling good about the choices made and the benefits to be provided over the coming year.

Contact the Benefits Team at The Reschini Group for more help with your Open Enrollment questions.