Forbes.com: How To Make Healthcare Benefits Less Of A Headache

04 Mar Forbes.com: How To Make Healthcare Benefits Less Of A Headache

Written by Serenity Gibbons for Forbes.com

Providing healthcare for workers has never been so expensive, but it’s never been so necessary either. In the midst of a raging pandemic, your employees need to know that an unforeseen medical setback isn’t going to crash their finances. With the right plans in place, business leaders can prevent those headaches from ever reaching their teams in the first place.

Even so, footing the bill is tough and getting tougher: per-worker business healthcare costs now sit at somewhere north of $15,000 annually, and that number is rising at double the rate of inflation. In order to make those numbers work, leaders need to keep everything running as smoothly as possible — the less headache you incur, the more value you’re getting out of your healthcare plan. Here’s how to do it:

1. Consolidate documents.

Managing a healthcare plan can sometimes feel like pulling on an endless string of paperwork, hoping you eventually coax out what you’re looking for. The more time you spend on documentation management, the more money you’ve lost through wasted working hours. The answer here isn’t to throw up your hands and declare defeat — it’s to find a solution that genuinely works.

Some providers are starting to offer the ability to streamline the information retrieval process. Hamilton Insurance Agency recently launched a benefits administration app that allows both employers and employees to access relevant handbooks, insurance cards, electronic enrollment, consolidated billing, and more. 

While document consolidation services will likely become the norm over the coming years, adopting one now can save you lots of headache in the near future. 

2. Get employee feedback. 

You should only be paying for the aspects of your healthcare program that are working and useful to your employees. If your own workers aren’t finding value in a major part of your healthcare plan, that’s a sign that it may be time to switch things up. 

Qualtrics, which offers a number of healthcare-focused satisfaction surveys, recommends egalitarian, anonymous feedback channels that allow you to hear as many unfiltered perspectives as possible. Healthcare plans at their best can be terminally overcomplicated, but oversimplification can lead to harmful cuts in coverage. Let your employees lead the charge on where to cut corners and how — this way, you’re maximizing usability without sacrificing efficacy.