Disability Insurance
Disability insurance. Do you have it? New studies are showing that it could be more beneficial for employers to offer auto-enrollment plans similar to auto-enrolling into a 401k plan. Keep reading the blog post below to learn more. Read more
Paid Leave
Benefits can be one of the sure ways of attracting a new hire and paid leave is one of the most coveted benefits. However, this benefit can be a tricky one to navigate. Some employers are getting themselves into trouble in the process, facing accusations of gender discrimination or improper use of leave.
Here are four potential pitfalls of paid leave, and how employers can avoid them.
1. Be careful what you call “maternity leave.”
Employers have long been granting leave for new moms in the form of disability coverage. In fact, the top cause of short term disability is pregnancy. Disability insurance usually grants new moms six to eight weeks of paid leave to recover from childbirth.
Because this coverage applies to the medical condition or recovering from childbirth, it shouldn’t be lumped in with bonding leave.
Guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says leave granted for new moms for bonding must also be extended to new dads, so separating disability leave from bonding leave is crucial to avoiding gender discrimination.
2. Don’t make gender assumptions.
The amount of bonding time for new parents after birth, adoption or fostering must be granted equally for men and women. Companies that don’t provide the same amount of paid leave for men and women may find themselves in a discrimination lawsuit.
It’s not just the time away from work that matters, but also the return-to-work support provided. If new moms are granted temporary or modified work schedules to ease the transition back to work, new dads must also have access to this.
Some companies may choose to differentiate the amount of leave and return-to-work support for primary or secondary caregivers. That’s compliant as long as assumptions aren’t made on which gender is the primary or secondary caregiver.
The best way to avoid potential gender discrimination pitfalls is to keep all parental bonding and related return-to-work policies gender-neutral.
3. Avoid assuming the length of disability.
Be careful about assuming the length of time a new mom is disabled, or recovering medically, after birth. Typical coverage policies allow six to eight weeks of recovery for a normal pregnancy, so assuming a new mom may be out for 10 weeks might be overestimating the medical recovery time, and under-representing the bonding time, which must be gender-neutral.
4. Keep up with federal, state and local laws.
Mandated leave laws are ever-evolving, so employers should consistently cross-check their policies with state and local laws. For instance, do local paid leave laws to treat adoption the same as birth? Are multistate employers compliant? What if an employee lives in one state but works in another: Which state’s leave policies take precedence?
Partnering with a paid leave service provider can mitigate the risk of improperly administering leave. Paid leave experts can help answer questions, review guidelines and provide information regarding job-protecting medical or family leave.
They can also help flag potential pitfalls, ensuring leave requests from all areas of your company are managed uniformly and in accordance with state and federal laws, including the EEOC.
SOURCE: Bennett, Angel. (29 July 2019) “4 pitfalls of paid leave and how clients can avoid them” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/list/pitfalls-of-paid-family-leave-and-how-to-avoid-them
Bad Hire Calculator
What may seem like minor costs when making a bad hire after the recruitment process can potentially be extremely harmful to a company. Lost productivity costs and hiring costs are two expenses that occur when making a bad hire. There is now a tool that can tell you just how much your company is spending on these bad hires.
- Many organizations don't know the true cost of making a wrong hiring decision, according to Thrivemap. Thrivemap developed a calculator that takes an organization's current headcount, annual headcount growth percentage and staff turnover rate and estimates that cost. The final cost estimate accounts for lost productivity costs, as well as hiring costs like advertising and agency fees, Thrivemap said in a press release emailed to HR Dive.
- As an example, the company calculated the bad hire costs for a company in the hospitality industry with 500 employees, an annual 5% increase in headcount and a 15% turnover rate. The costs added up to £406,038, or more than $500,000.
- Lost productivity is a cost that businesses experience often but shouldn't ignore, according to Thirvemap. The company said that research it conducted earlier this year found that workers who felt they fit their role and their employer's culture gave their productivity a 7.2 rating out of 10, compared to the 5.3 rating that those who felt they were a bad fit on both counts gave their productivity.
A 2018 Salary.com report said that turnover is at an all-time high, which puts more pressure on talent pros and hiring managers to avoid hiring mistakes. With turnover and the cost of attrition top of mind for employers, it might be prudent for talent pros to also consider the productivity costs that result from bad hires, too. One example from Thrivemap indicated that the difference in productivity between a good-fit employee and a bad hire can be as high as 36%.
Thrivemap points out that when HR can account for and calculate costs associated with its functions, in this case hiring, it comes closer to its proverbial seat at the table. HR must be able to understand financials, establish its own key performance indicators and show the top brass that it can hit those benchmarks for success, experts have told HR Dive. To stand a better chance of avoiding bad hires altogether, experts have said that talent pros can:
- Have a robust interview process with multiple people, diving deep into experience that is critical to the role;
- Use assessments related to the job;
- Thoroughly go through the reference process;
- Articulate the company culture.
In addition, any tools that can predict what bad hires are currently costing could help HR departments and talent professional make a case for adopting better sourcing and screening tools within their organizations. Investing in tools that can better identify hires with the right skills and who are the right culture fit might keep bad hire costs from becoming a chronic drain.
SOURCE- Bolden-Barrett, Valerie. (25 July 2019). “Bad hire calculator aims to estimate the cost of failed recruits” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/bad-hire-calculator-aims-to-estimate-the-cost-of-failed-recruits
Nine-to-Five at Home
When you hear the phrase "nine-to-five" you picture a day in the office. According to a recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics more employees are getting the job done from home. This study accounts for the time spent doing activities that are non-work and work-related.
- While most employees still spend most of their hours at work in the office, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysis showed that more workers in management, professional and related (MPR) occupations, especially, are working at home all or part of the time; they are three times more likely to work at home compared to people in other occupations. The analysis comes from the American Time Use Survey, which measures the time people spend doing a range of activities, both work- and nonwork-related.
- Not only are MPR workers more likely than other employees to work at home, but they also worked on average fewer hours in the office and more hours at home on weekdays between 2013 and 2017 than they did between 2003 and 2007. The average work time for MPR workers between 2013 and 2017 also varied by location — those who worked only at home worked the shortest length of time. BLS noted that people worked in different locations for various reasons, such as to fit in appointments, work around commitments or catch up on their work.
- MPR workers in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, media, education, training and library occupations were found to be the least likely to work only at their worksite, while healthcare practitioners and technical workers were most likely to work only onsite.
The BLS analysis supports what other studies have also noted: employees are increasingly taking advantage of remote work options, and in some job positions — such as tech developers — remote working is considered the norm. Flexible work options, generally, have captured public opinion and factor into job seekers' decisions over whether to accept a job offer, a previous IWG study showed; for that reason, 83% of employers have adopted a flexible workspace policy in the past decade.
A significant number of workers say they'd be more productive at home thanks to fewer distractions and interruptions and less stress from commuting, a 2018 FlexJob survey noted. But many employees particularly enjoy having the option to choose where to work, even if that option tends toward the office for some demographic groups. Despite the growing popularity of such arrangements, however, many still do not have a flexible work policy in place; only 36% of respondents to a Randstad Workmonitor study said their employers support flexible work options.
Improved technology has enabled MPR workers to work from home or other remote locations. For jobs that don't allow remote or flexible work options due to the nature of the work, such as in healthcare or retail customer service jobs, some employers have instead opted for flexible or predictive scheduling programs to give workers more control over their work hours.
SOURCE- Bolden-Barrett, Valerie. (24 July 2019). “BLS: More employees are working from home regularly” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/bls-more-employees-are-working-from-home-regularly
AI in Human Resources
Administrative work, including answering employee questions, takes up about 73.2% of HR’s time, according to a study by the Center for Effective Organizations. That doesn’t leave much room for evaluating workplace culture, researching new retention programs or recruiting — all equally essential HR functions.
“It takes about three minutes to answer a question, but when you consider how many of those are coming in you realize how much it can really bog [HR] down,” said Debbie Smith, vice president of HR at software company E2open — during a recent webinar. “We could spend that time on higher quality initiatives.”
To help redirect some of HR’s more tedious work, 20-year HR veteran Beth White programmed a chatbot last year to specifically address workplace questions. She dubbed the virtual assistant — and her company — MeBeBot, which can be customized to answer questions specific to a company’s benefits program and policies.
“Our goal is to enable HR professionals everywhere to leverage technology to extend the knowledge of HR, and to put the focus back on our most important priority: our people,” White said.
Employees get frustrated when there are too many digital platforms to access work benefits, she added. So MeBeBot is integrated with popular online communication tools like Slack, Skype, and Teams that employees already use at work to make the application more accessible, White added. And being online, employees can access the program outside of office hours.
“You can get questions about your benefits answered when you’re at the doctor’s office,” White said as an example.
E2open is a customer of MeBeBot; the software company was able to save their HR department 184 hours of labor last year after introducing a custom chatbot, called Eva, Smith said. The HR department requested the chatbot be programmed to answer basic administrative questions about benefits, taking time off and company policies. Since its induction, Eva has been answering around 300 employee questions a month, Smith said.
“We introduced Eva to the staff as the place you go for questions; now it’s the first place they go,” Smith said. “Now our [HR] staff is able to do more impactful things to run the business.”
Using the data it collects from employee questions and usage, MeBeBot is able to identify training topics employees need to be covered and identify workplace issues that may threaten employee retention efforts, White noted. Going forward, she said she would like to explore how artificial intelligence can also support employees’ professional development.
“We can’t scale or grow without thinking about smart ways we can use technology to become more efficient,” White said.
SOURCE: Webster, Kayla. (23 July 2019). “HR bogged down with questions? AI can help” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/how-ai-can-assist-overworked-human-resources
Retiring Abroad
Retirement looks different for everyone but what does retiring abroad look like? How well does Medicare travel? Keep reading to learn about some of the realities of retiring abroad.
When Karen Schirack, 67, slipped on her way into her house in January and broke her left femur in multiple places, she had a decision to make. Should she get surgery to repair the fractured thigh bone and replace her hip near Ajijic, Mexico, where she has lived for 20 years, or be airlifted back to her home state of Ohio for surgery and rehab?
As the number of American retirees living overseas grows, more of them are confronting choices like Schirack’s about medical care. If they were living in the United States, Medicare would generally be their coverage option. But Medicare doesn’t pay for care outside the U.S., except in limited circumstances.
Expatriate retirees might find private insurance policies and national health plans in other countries. But these may not provide high-quality, comprehensive care at an affordable price that retirees expect through Medicare. Faced with imperfect choices, some retirees cobble together different types of insurance, a mix that includes Medicare.
That’s what Schirack has done. She pays about $3,700 annually for a private insurance policy through Allianz that covered her surgery at a private hospital in Guadalajara, about an hour from Ajijic. She also has a medical evacuation policy that would have paid for her flight to the States, if she’d opted for that. That policy costs roughly $3,000 for five years. And she pays for Medicare Part B, which she can use for care when she visits family in the U.S. (The standard Part B premium is $135.50 monthly.)
Schirack has a scar running from her waist to the middle of her thigh, but she no longer needs home nursing care and wrapped up months of physical therapy in June. After five more months of healing, she hopes to be back to normal.
Her private plan paid the equivalent of about $20,000 for her surgery. Before she left the hospital, Schirack had to cover her portion of the total, about $2,400, plus bills for other expenses, including blood transfusions.
After she left the hospital, she was responsible for paying for other services — home nurses, physical therapy and medications — and submitting receipts to the insurer for reimbursement. She estimates she has spent about $10,000 and has been reimbursed for about two-thirds of that so far.
If she’d had surgery in the States, she might have faced fewer paperwork hassles, Schirack said, “but all in all, I’m not going to complain.”
The quality of health care varies widely by country, as do the services available to foreign residents. And there are quite a few of these transplanted Americans.
From 2012 to 2017, the number of retired workers living in foreign countries who were receiving Social Security benefits grew by nearly 15% to more than 413,000, according to the Social Security Administration. The largest numbers were in Canada (nearly 70,000) and Japan (more than 45,000). Mexico was third, home to nearly 30,000 retired workers.
Commercial health care policies for them may provide decent coverage, but people can generally be denied a policy or charged higher rates for medical reasons. The plans may refuse to cover some preexisting conditions. Schirack’s policy, for example, doesn’t cover any services related to her allergies.
Private policies can be problematic for another reason: They may have age limits. The GeoBlue Xplorer Essential plan, for example, enrolls only people who are 74 or younger, and coverage expires when people turn 84. In contrast, Medicare eligibility generally begins at 65 and continues until a beneficiary dies.
And the policies aren’t cheap. A 70-year-old might pay $1,900 a month for an Xplorer Essential plan with a $1,000 deductible, said Todd Taylor, a sales director for GeoBlue. A plan with a $5,000 deductible might run $1,400 monthly. That doesn’t include coverage for services in the United States.
Rates may also vary by country. A 67-year-old American living in Costa Rica who buys a midlevel Cigna plan with a deductible of $750 for hospital care and $150 for outpatient care might pay $1,164 a month, said David Tompkins, president of TFG Global Insurance Solutions. The same policy might cost $913 in France, Tompkins said.
Claudia Peresman moved from Connecticut to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, last November. She has opted for a private insurance plan, for which she pays about $100 a month. “What I wanted was catastrophic coverage,” she says. “Things are so affordable here that, outside of being admitted to the hospital, I can probably afford it.”(COURTESY OF CLAUDIA PERESMAN)
Since medical care is sometimes much less expensive overseas, some retirees opt to pay out of pocket for minor or routine services.
Claudia Peresman, 63, moved from Stonington, Conn., to San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico last November. On her first night there, she tripped in the bathroom, hit her face on a wall and split her lip. Her neighbors helped her get a cab to a 24-hour emergency room at a hospital about five minutes away, where staff cleaned up the cut and sent her home. She paid the roughly $25 fee in cash.
Peresman recently purchased a private insurance plan with a $2,500 deductible, for which she pays about $100 a month.
“What I wanted was catastrophic coverage,” she said. “Things are so affordable here that, outside of being admitted to the hospital, I can probably afford it.”
Even when retirees buy a private policy, Medicare is another piece of the puzzle that they have to consider. Once people become eligible for Medicare coverage, usually at age 65, they face a 10% premium penalty for every 12 months they are not enrolled in Part B, which covers outpatient services. (People who are 65 but still covered by an employer plan generally do not face that penalty.)
After paying into the Medicare system for decades, it’s no wonder some expats are frustrated that they can’t generally use the program outside the United States.
That’s just the way the law is written, an official at the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.
“CMS cannot speak to or speculate on congressional intent,” the official said.
And retirees should honestly consider whether they will spend the rest of their lives overseas.
“Even if that is their goal, is their health and mobility going to allow them to accomplish that?” said Dr. David Shlim, 69, who treated many expats when he ran a medical clinic in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the 1980s and ’90s. “People should imagine that they may need to come back to the U.S. and ask themselves how are they going to do that and afford that.”
Rules on whether noncitizens can enroll in a national health plan vary by country.
After living in the United States for nearly 30 years and raising a family here, Alberto Avendaño, 61, is moving back to northern Spain in August with his wife, Zuni Garro, also 61. Avendaño has dual citizenship, and his wife is a citizen of the United States. The couple can enroll in the Spanish universal health system and receive care there. They also plan to buy a private plan to use if they want to get medical services without a wait, said Avendaño.
Once they turn 65, they may enroll in Medicare as well, Avendaño said, depending on their circumstances. Their two children live in the United States.
“It is something that is part of our American system, and we want to have it,” he said.
Peresman also has a few years before turning 65 and making a decision, but she is leaning in the other direction. She is worried that the Medicare program may not exist in its current form when it comes time to decide.
“I’d sign up if it were absolutely free,” she said. “But I’m already paying $100 a month here.”
SOURCE- Andrews, Michelle. (23 July 2019). “Dream of Retiring Abroad? The Reality: Medicare Doesn’t Travel Well” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://khn.org/news/retiring-abroad-prepare-to-possibly-mix-and-match-health-insurance/
Technology Influencing the Healthcare and Employee Benefits Industry
Technology is taking the world by storm and the healthcare/employee benefits industry is no exception. Whether you are an employee or an employer shopping for benefits can be the same for both parties. Here’s how technology will influence the industry in the future.
Apps will push value-based care
This tech shift to shopping for benefits will bring with it the rise of platforms and app-based insurance. The hope is that apps and platforms will make it easier to buy and understand insurance, and easier to get the best healthcare fast. That means high-quality care at a low price at a time that’s convenient for patients.
Emerging tech platforms should provide employees with more options for insurance — and a better understanding of those options — and make it easier to manage wellness, healthcare and insurance coverage. Apps will put more information in front of the average employee, giving them more freedom to make choices about their care.
The idea is these emerging platforms and apps tie together payroll and HRIS with wellness and healthcare navigator apps to help workers live healthier lives.
Here’s how it could work: When an employee isn’t feeling well, they first turn to their telemedicine app instead of picking up the phone to make a doctor’s appointment or visiting urgent care. Telemedicine is more convenient for them and costs less than a traditional doctor’s visit. If the telemedicine provider refers them to a specialist, they can then turn to a health navigator app to find a high-quality specialist at the lowest price for their next appointment.
When they're feeling better, they can use a connected wellness app to record gym visits, meditate, speak to a therapist and earn points for wellness activities like reaching a step-count milestone or getting a preventive checkup. These points can contribute to a real-time insurance premium discount that they can easily view from an app. The app can also present them with the opportunity to add or change voluntary benefits and, during the open enrollment, learn about their benefits choices and decide on the best plan.
Apps specific to shopping for benefits will provide more information to healthcare consumers and the necessary tools to make better care decisions. The hope is this technology will help people become healthier, get better care and use insurance more efficiently.
How HR fits in
Though employees will have the ability to make easy changes to benefit plans — especially voluntary benefits — the role of HR may change, depending on the employer’s size.
Large, more than 1,000 life employers will likely partner with a technology company and a benefits consultant who will manage the platform and the insurance-buying process for employees. Representatives from the HR technology platform, the benefits consultant and human resources staff will be responsible for educating employees about their options. Importantly, the employer will continue to sponsor employee benefits. They may present cafeteria-style benefits plans and provide a dollar amount toward the purchase of benefits.
Bigger changes may come for small companies with fewer than 100 employees. Many of these businesses may turn to a professional employer organization or other HR outsourcing arrangements with a built-in technology platform. Though healthcare insurance costs will continue to rise, small employers will continue to contribute to employee benefits premiums to help attract and retain talent.
The imperative for employers: communicate and educate
The only way this shift to platforms, apps, and other technology-based solutions will work is if employers, benefits brokers and platform companies themselves work to educate and communicate with employees about how this all works. Insurance platforms can no longer be staffed with technologists only; they need experts who understand health and welfare benefits in order to onboard employees and teach them how to get the most from their benefits platform.
And while HR’s role may change slightly, those teams are still in charge of helping employees learn about the benefits landscape and plan their healthcare and financial well-being for the next plan year. HR teams need to focus on communicating through any channel necessary, whether it’s email, social media, in-person education meetings or podcasts. It benefits everyone when employees understand how to choose the best plan and make decisions about appropriate care.
Putting more healthcare and insurance information in front of employees when they’re shopping for benefits and seeking services can drive them to make smarter decisions and look for better options when possible, but only if they understand how it all works.
SOURCE: Lisa, Mike. (24 July 2019). “Shopping for benefits: What technology holds for clients” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/what-technology-holds-for-employee-healthcare-benefits?brief=00000152-1443-d1cc-a5fa-7cfba3c60000
Financial Fitness Benefits Take Center Stage as Debt Worries Grow
According to speakers from the Society for Human Resource Management 2019 Annual Conference & Exposition, employees who are taking advantage of financial health benefits have less stress, reduced distraction and lower absenteeism. Read this blog post for more on financial fitness benefits.
LAS VEGAS—Employers that help workers improve their financial health are seeing increased productivity, job satisfaction and retention. Employees taking advantage of these benefits have less stress, reduced distraction and lower absenteeism, according to speakers at the Society for Human Resource Management 2019 Annual Conference & Exposition.
"Your employees are financially stressed, and it's affecting your business," said Dan Macklin, CEO of Salary Finance, a financial technology firm, during a June 24 panel discussion on financial wellness benefits. A survey conducted by his firm, with responses from 10,484 U.S. employees, found that 48 percent were worried or stressed about their finances. Financially stressed employees lost nearly one month of productive workdays per year.
Money management problems exist across all income levels, Macklin noted.
"Financial worries are the No. 1 cause of employee stress," said Kent Allison, national leader for employee financial education and wellness at PwC. The consultancy's 2019 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, with responses from 1,686 full-time employees, showed that 59 percent cited financial or money matters as their chief source of stress, followed by their job (15 percent) and relationships.
Nearly half (49 percent) of all employees said they find it difficult to meet household expenses on time each month, PwC found.
"Employees are seeking personalized financial guidance and coaching," Allison said. "Successful financial wellness programs find the optimal way to combine technology and human interaction" to help employees get back on track financially.
Organizations are more likely to thrive when they help employees "bring their healthiest and happiest self to work," said Felicia Cheng, wellness benefits program manager at HR technology firm SalesForce.
Organizations are more likely to thrive when they help employees 'bring their healthiest and happiest self to work.'
Have meaningful conversations with employees, said Wendy Myers Cambor, Northeast U.S. HR leader at consulting firm Accenture. "Ask what they want, what they need and how we might be in a position to accommodate them."
Accenture, like many companies, has five generations of employees in its workforce, whose concerns range from "managing student debt and affording to have a child and buy a home, to helping to care and provide for aging parents while preparing for their own retirement," Cambor noted.
Physical wellness and financial wellness are deeply interrelated, said Allison, because financial distress can lead to health distress.
Similar to health risk assessments, he said, financial wellness assessments can be helpful because "how can you change behaviors if you don't know what these behaviors are?" He advised, "Assess employees to know where they are financially and what their needs are, and what behaviors they may need to change."
Financial health assessments could be stymied if employees don't feel comfortable revealing their distress—and don't trust their employers with this information, panelists noted. Cheng said it was important to help employees overcome taboos around admitting to money problems, because, if employers don't understand the scope of the challenges their employees face, they can't provide the help that employees need.
Macklin noted that younger workers seem more willing to discuss their financial difficulties and are grateful for the guidance and assistance employers provide.
Younger workers seem more willing to discuss their financial difficulties and are grateful for the assistance employers provide.
"Engage employees at the right time to provide help when needed," Allison suggested.
"People are suffering," Cambor said. "There are opportunities for HR to make a difference in peoples' lives."
"Employees' stories are powerful," Cheng said. HR should "bring them to the leadership team, coupled with data on the positive impact of financial wellness," to make the case for financial wellness benefits.
Student Loan Benefits Are in Demand
Student loan debt affects employees at all stages of their careers, said Kevin Fudge, director of consumer advocacy at American Student Assistance, a nonprofit that helps students manage their education debt, during a June 25 conference session.
He noted that more than 3 million Americans ages 60 and older currently owe more than $86 billion in unpaid student loans, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Employees face different concerns at different career stages, Fudge pointed out, including:
- Early career: Paying off student loans and related debt.
- Mid-career: Supporting a family and saving for children's college education.
- Late career: Helping children and grandchildren by co-signing loans and preparing for retirement.
Fudge pointed to innovative ways employers are helping with student loans. For instance:
- Abbott Laboratories allows employees to save for retirement and pay down their student loans. If an employee is paying off student loans (using 2 percent or more of their pay), Abbott will put the equivalent of 5 percent of the employee's pay into his or her 401(k) account.
Abbott received a private letter ruling from the IRS to allow this practice. The IRS is expected to sanction similar plans with broader guidance. Legislation has also been introduced to allow this practice.
- Unum, a national insurance firm, lets employees transfer carried-over paid time off into debt repayment.
In a June 24 conference session on student loan benefits, Meera Oliva, chief marketing officer at Gradifi, a loan benefits administrator; Jane Fontaine, senior vice president of HR at Digital Federal Credit Union; and Chad Carter, vice president of benefits at Fareway Stores, shared these examples, showing the range of student loan aid employers are providing:
- AECOM, a Fortune 500 engineering firm, offers student loan refinancing along with student loan counseling and financial wellness content.
- Carvana, an e-commerce platform for buying cars, offers up to $1,000 per year to help full-time employees pay off their student loans.
- Connelly Partners, a Boston-based advertising agency, offers a total benefit of $10,000 with contributions starting at $100 a month for the first year and then increasing $25 a month for the next four years. In another effort to retain employees, the firm gives a $1,000 retention bonus at the end of the fifth year of employment.
- Sotheby's, an auction house and private sales firm, offers $150 per month contribution toward student loans indefinitely until employees are no longer in debt, including parents who have taken on debt for their children.
SOURCE: Miller, S. (27 June 2019) "Financial Fitness Benefits Take Center Stage as Debt Worries Grow" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/financial-fitness-benefits-take-center-stage.aspx
Creating an ‘urgent care first’ mindset for employee benefits
With urgent cares continuing to pop up everywhere, it’s important to guide your employees in adopting an "urgent care first" mentality. Continue reading this blog post to learn more.
Urgent care centers are popping up everywhere, which means getting quick healthcare is easier and more convenient for patients. But these centers could also help employers minimize expensive emergency room claims. That’s why it’s important to guide employees to adopt an “urgent care first” mentality.
The concept of urgent care has been around since the 1970s, but rising healthcare costs, especially for ER care, have spurred an increase in centers across the U.S. over the last decade. In fact, from 2014 through June 2017, the number of urgent care centers rose by nearly 20%.
Urgent care centers provide care for health problems that aren’t life-threatening, but can’t wait for an appointment with a primary care provider. No one wants to suffer with a sore throat all weekend. Many urgent care centers are staffed with doctors and nurses, and provide more advanced capabilities than what’s typically available at a primary care doctor’s office. For example, some urgent care centers give stitches, provide X-rays and even MRIs.
Patients can also get treatment at urgent care for conditions they’d typically see a primary care doctor for, such as the flu or a fever, mild to moderate asthma, skin rashes, sprains and strains, and a severe sore throat or cough — illnesses that produce unnecessary high claims if treated in an ER.
Still, when a severe sore throat and high fever strike on a weekend and the doctor’s office is closed, employees may gravitate to the ER because they’re sick and need help right now. That’s where the urgent care first mindset becomes good medicine. It typically costs the employer (and often the employee) far less if that sore throat is treated in an urgent care facility.
The high cost of ER care is enough to make anyone run a high temp. From 2009 to 2016 (the most recent data available), the average amount that hospitals billed insurance carriers for an emergency room visit more than doubled, from $600 to $1,322. By contrast, urgent care typically costs about $150 per visit. Members often pay a lower copay for urgent care visits, too.
The urgent care first mindset is starting to take hold. New data analysis from Aetna shows that as urgent care centers began to proliferate, ER visits for minor health issues dropped 36%, while the use of urgent care and other non-emergency health settings increased 140%.
However, the same study shows that plans only saw a decrease in ER visits if there were several urgent care centers in the geographic region where their employees lived. Awareness is key.
Fostering an urgent care first mentality
Employers can’t just include urgent care in a benefits plan and expect employees to use it. They need to design the plan to encourage use and follow up with plenty of education.
Education about the benefits of primary care versus urgent care versus the ER should take place during open enrollment and throughout the plan year so members understand the medical necessity and financial implications of each option. Including the closest urgent care centers to employees, as well as a list of services they provide, can help encourage them to adopt an urgent care first mentality.
A word of caution: not every nearby urgent care center is actually in-network. It literally pays for employees to keep a list of nearby in-network centers handy when that inevitable weekend sore throat strikes.
Reminders about urgent care before spring allergies, summer vacations, fall school physicals and flu season can also help encourage their use.
The too-low ER copay
Plan design is another important piece of the puzzle to help steer employees to the right level of care for their needs. It’s not that unusual to see a $100 copay for an emergency department visit. While no one wants to discourage ER visits for true emergencies, it makes sense to adjust the plan design to encourage primary and urgent care visits instead. That may mean a $20 copay for primary care, a $40 copay for urgent care and a $200 to $250 copay for ER visits — which is waived if the plan participant is admitted to the hospital.
For high-deductible health plans paired with a health savings account, the savings can be even more drastic; patients may pay $200 for an urgent care visit versus $1,200 for an ER visit.
The combination of education and plan design can help curb unnecessary ER visits, which could help employers control healthcare increases from plan year to plan year. For health issues that crop up during off hours, the urgent care first mindset is good for both employers and employees, who will ultimately save time and money.
SOURCE: O'Conner, P. (5 July 2019) "Creating an ‘urgent care first’ mindset for employee benefits" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/creating-an-urgent-care-first-mindset-for-employees
Here’s how to ensure employees know how to pick the right benefits
Open enrollment is an important time for employees, but it's often a stressful one as well. According to recent research, the average employee spends less than 30 minutes selecting their benefits. Read this blog post for more on communicating benefit options to employees.
Annual enrollment is an important time for employees — but it’s also a stressful one. The choices they make can affect their financial health, yet the average employee spends less than 30 minutes selecting their benefits, according to research from benefits provider Unum.
With annual enrollment planning underway, now is the time for employers to ask themselves, “How can we help employees make the right benefits decisions?” The answers may be more valuable than they think.
See Also: Ideas for Effectively Demonstrating Plan Choices
Today’s workforce is the most diverse in history, with four generations actively working, and a fifth connected through benefits and pensions. A robust benefits package is increasingly important for recruitment and retention, challenging employers to provide choices and options that support diverse needs.
About 80% of employees prefer a job with benefits over one with a higher salary but no benefits, according to the American Institute of CPAs. As such it’s vital that employers ensure their workforce is engaged with their benefits and taking full advantage of what is available. Here are five ways employers can make sure that happens.
See Also: Ideas to Help Employees Find their "Best Fit" Plan
1. Acknowledge that decision support addresses personalized needs. Tools that demystify the benefits selection process can help employees make choices that align with their risk tolerance, financial circumstances and unique needs. The best tools lead employees to a recommended suite of benefits options that fit their individual physical, emotional and financial health.
2. Know that year-round engagement improves benefits literacy. While employees appreciate benefits, they aren’t experts. Indeed, roughly one-third of employees are outright confused about their benefits, according to recent data from Businessolver. Keeping up a cadence of communication about benefits throughout the year can help address this challenge.
3. Recognize the power of a total rewards statement. It empowers employees to maximize the benefits available to them, and these tools can be accessed at any time, not just during enrollment. The most impactful solutions aggregate all employee benefits options in one integrated offering that demonstrates the full value of compensation and benefits investments made by them and their employer.
See Also: Communicating the Value of Employee Benefits
4. Think about different generations. Customizable benefits options are a crucial step in meeting the needs of today’s workforce. For example, our latest data shows that nearly two-thirds of millennials are concerned with managing their monthly budget, while over 50% of boomers are most worried about a large, unexpected cost. Having core medical plan offerings along with complementary voluntary options helps employees address varying financial needs. Likewise, paid parental leave and different health plan options assist families at any stage, and they make it likelier that your employees will engage with their benefits and remain with your organization.
5. Be sure employees know that savings vehicles contribute to financial well-being. Employees of all ages and income levels are facing financial stressors — but they may not be the same ones. Offering different financial benefits, such as student loan assistance and emergency savings accounts, in addition to retirement benefits, enables your employees to address both their immediate and long-term financial needs.
See Also: Avoiding Communication Overload During Open Enrollment
More than ever, employers have a responsibility to help employees make informed decisions when it comes to selecting the right benefits. Otherwise, they risk losing top talent to organizations that are better implementing benefits strategies and technologies.
By meeting the needs of a diverse workforce with an array of benefits options supported by appropriate decision support resources, employers can ensure they’re meeting their workforce’s needs and retaining valuable employees.
See Also: Incorporating Incentives to Create Educated Benefit Consumers
SOURCE: Shanahan, R. (26 June 2019) "Here’s how to ensure employees know how to pick the right benefits" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/educating-employees-to-pick-the-right-benefits