Should You Make Changes To Your Health Plan Offerings?

“We just can’t consider making any changes this year to our plan offerings and certainly not a change to how we fund our benefits.  The cost of offering our services is up , funding of our programs is down and we were only able to offer our best employees a cost of living increase of 2%. The latter now being a 5 year trend for our organization…”

This sad scenario is one I am confronted with on a daily basis as a Consultant here at Exude. The plight of the organizations that I have the privilege of helping is something I think about long after the day comes to a close.

The struggle these organizations face may not be within their control but that doesn’t make the conversation with their employees any easier as they try to explain why the health plan costs are consuming their cost of living increases from year to year. You can certainly begin to see why a decision maker would hesitate to make any changes to the company health plan offering. Makes sense right? Not quite.

How’s the saying go? Whether you think this quote originated with automotive tycoon Henry Ford or someone more recent like Tony Robbins, you likely agree with the truth of the statement “If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten”.

Yes my job is to challenge the thinking of HR Directors, CFO’s and CEO’s so that “we just can’t consider making any changes” turns into “we can’t afford not to change”.

Is it done overnight? Not usually. Organizational change deserves careful forethought and planning long before execution. How do you accomplish that?  While it’s not magic, with the right team at the helm guiding your decisions, even smaller organizations can position themselves to have more transparency around the increases they receive from year to year, all while maintaining a similar plan design. By changing to a partially self-funded or completely self-funded benefit plan offering, organizations can start to take control. Many think that Self-Funding is for the large employer only. While it is true that 82% of covered workers in large firms are enrolled in plans that are either partially or completely self-funded, overall, 61% of covered workers are enrolled in plans that are either partially or completely self-funded. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016 Employer Health Benefits Survey).

Have you begun looking into alternative funding arrangements? Why not start by looking HERE for more information?

Interested in seeing if you should consider self-funding? Contact us today!