Mitigating the High Cost of Healthcare Benefits While Maintaining Quality & Value
The beginning of a new year is a time for reflecting on the journey ahead of us.
While we look forward, my team and I are mindful and grateful for the past and for the experiences that impact how we arrived at this point in time. At Providence we are in the business of offering comprehensive employee benefit solutions for businesses of all sizes. We are trusted with serving the treasure so important to each company’s success, their employees.
Consider United Healthcare: If you bought, symbol UNH on January 1st, 1985, and still owned it today. Congratulations on your tidy 233,000% return.
Just for fun consider Apple, is only up 170,000%.
The clients, business and employees we serve, renew their benefits on an annual basis. This process happens every month of the year for our various clients. Each month we get to reflect on the past and look to the future, as it pertains to cost and quality of benefits being offered. Sadly, we can all painfully attest, the cost of health coverage is rising as benefits are diminishing. The question is how can we mitigate the cost and continue to offer high qualify benefits? Let’s consider the following from an employer as well as individual insureds perspective.
The work begins with how your company is presented to the health insurance carriers. We look at your company census data with a keen eye. In reality, it is a beauty contest. Please know this, age matters and it has a direct financial impact on the employer’s bottom line and each employee’s paycheck, in regards to the cost of healthcare benefits. It also affects the quality and robustness of the plans that are offered for all employees on the plan.
Plan sponsors and business owners ask yourself, how many employees do you have that are over 65? How many of those on your census are on Medicare? How many over 65 are enrolled in your company’s health plan? Have you considered recommending your 65+ employees, who are enrolled in your health plan, speak with a reputable Medicare Specialist? Encouraging those 65 and older to consider a Medicare plan is likely to save them money and provide robust quality benefits.
It is an absolute must to scrub and clean your census. We are constantly amazed that these simple steps are often overlooked. Why is this all so important to consider, the answer is simple, we can reset your premium bar lower. Yes, we can reverse the trend of perpetual rate increases. One example of a mid-size company we recently represented, by simply moving four 65+ employees off their census and onto Medicare, their overall premium was lowered by a whopping 30%. This savings was achieved even after enriching their benefits back to the quality and value offered 5 years ago.
If you’re still with me.
Are you approaching 65 or already over 65? Are you still on your employers sponsored health plan? Please do yourself, your employer as well as your fellow colleagues a favor, look into signing up for Medicare, you’ve earned it. The Medicare benefit will be richer, more robust than what you currently have and will most likely cost less than $150 per month.
The word Providence:
The protective care of God, with the preparation for future eventualities. This fiduciary responsibility is our mission at “Providence” Benefit Solutions.
Remember United Healthcare’s growth of 233,000% since 1985, this is what we are all up against. Let us push back, collectively, for our overall well-being.
