Employee Benefits Consulting
Our Approach
We know that developing a long-term employee benefits strategy is a priority for organizations. To remain customer intimate in today’s business environment requires an employer to meet the changing and diverse needs of its workforce to ensure retention of its key employees.
Employee benefits consulting can be a complicated task. As an employee benefits brokerage firm with over 20 years of experience, we understand the goal is to provide a stronger and more comprehensive offering for your employees, while making it easier for your HR Team and employees to be consumers of your health plans.
Exude is ideally suited to help you achieve this goal. Our Benefits Consultants work differently than our competition – we use a holistic approach to precisely determine how best to support your organization’s goals and objectives, bring our expertise to bear, and together develop innovative solutions that result in the achievement of your mission.
Simply put, we “think bigger” than just how best to consult and advise you on your employee benefits strategy. With Exude’s Employee Benefits Consulting, first we listen, then we customize. As your benefits broker, we take the time upfront to understand your goals, challenges, and culture before designing a custom multi-year employee benefits strategy that will attract and retain the talent you need.
Our employee benefits consultants use Exude’s strategic framework to guide us through the entire process to ensure your health plan works for you and aligns with your people and business strategy.
Our Employee Benefit Consulting
At Exude, we believe your benefits strategy should be an extension of your overall organizational objectives. We’re not just a benefits brokerage firm, but a continuous partner to help guide you through the complicated maze of healthcare.
Our innovative employee benefits consultants take a hands-on approach to benefits consulting, personalized customer service and the utilization of technology and healthcare analytics, we provide you with a multi-year strategic benefits strategy and design that will bring innovative approaches and ideas, reduce costs, minimize administrative burdens and support your business objectives.
Your employee benefits advisor will work with you on:
- Strategic Framework & Renewal Planning
- Employee Survey
- Benchmarking
- Vendor Management
- Compliance
- Plan Design Strategies
- Funding Strategies
- Contribution Strategies
- Captives
- Direct Contracting, Disease Management, Stop Loss Coalition, Referenced Based Pricing
Exude’s in-house certified compliance expert supports the research, education and adherence on compliance related requirements for our clients. Our compliance expert keeps our staff and our clients ahead of the curve with:
- Onboarding Auditing
- Legislative Alerts, Notifications and Guidance (reporting deadlines, minimum value and affordability testing, nondiscrimination testing, control group evaluations, ACA employee classification guides)
- COBRA Administration
- SPD and Wrap Documents
- 5500 and SAR prep
- ACA guidance
Items below are simply from a benefits perspective but from an HR perspective it also includes holidays, PTO, flexible schedules, remote work, leave policies, professional development, and other benefits.
- Plan design and coverage considerations (preventive care, testing, procedures, mental health, addiction and substance abuse)
- Enhanced programs and benefits (adoption benefits, fertility benefits)
- Administrative considerations
- Communication strategies
- Plan Management
- Implementation and Service
- Technology Portal & Decision Support Tools
- Enrollment Services
- Census & Eligibility Audits
We understand that healthcare keeps no “regular” business hours, and neither does our team. We’re up and running, 24/7, to alleviate your HR team’s administrative burden whenever there is an issue. Call, email, or submit a form; we’ll take care of it so you can focus on your day-to-day tasks.
We want to be in direct contact with your employees whenever they feel the need, however they feel most comfortable having the conversation.
We know that the world of healthcare is complex and creates challenges for your HR team and employees, so we have a team and process in place to educate and drive people to action. We offer various educational resources to our clients and their employees at Open Enrollment and throughout the year. Our clients benefit from a customized communication strategy.
Offering the right voluntary employee benefits can help you attract and retain top talent. Outside of traditional employee benefits, voluntary benefits are a great way to offer low-cost perks to your employees to keep them engaged.
Our employee benefits advisors will help you communicate and disseminate information about these benefits to help your employees understand them and ultimately appreciate the program and its value.
We’ll also measure employee satisfaction and report on engagement and enrollment with your voluntary benefits program.
Communities We Serve
A Word from Our Client
At Exude, one of our core values is to fight for what’s right. Check out how we put this to action through our client advocacy services and helped save an employee $20,000 on their medical bill.
Alternate Funding Solutions
Employers are looking for more creative ways to help mitigate cost as significant renewal increases are on the rise. As a benefits broker, we work with our clients to address the different funding mechanisms available in today’s market and are committed to building ongoing innovative solutions to impact their bottom line.
Below are examples of some of the type of funding arrangements we have implemented and recommended for our clients. In fact, when we take clients to alternative funding arrangement, our employee benefit consultants save them an average of 21% on their premium in the first year.
Exude Solution Builder™ is an exclusive program that gives employers greater control, more options, and increased cost savings. With this program, middle market employers can leverage their collective purchasing power to drive down costs and spread risk in this partially self-funded program.
Learn more about Solution Builder™
A self-funded group health plan is one in which the employer eliminates obligations to a health plan provider by assuming the financial risk for providing health care benefits directly to its employees. In this arrangement the employer has the most control and greatest access to data.
However, your organization needs to open to taking on more risk and have positive cash flow in order to pay for the claims as they come in. Read more about the Pros and Cons of Self-funding here. A few key questions to consider when thinking about self-funding or alternative funding:
- What are the organization’s goals? Immediate cost savings, turnkey administration, long term cost control?
- What is the strategy behind the approach being considered? Independence, cooperative purchasing power, risk sharing?
- What are the intricacies involved with the funding solution?
- Variability in monthly payments, protection for catastrophic claims, fiduciary responsibilities, applicable state mandates?
A Captive program is a Self-Funded plan with the protection of other similar or non-similar companies that buy-in to the Captive together. A captive is an independent insurance company created and owned by at least one non-insurance company that assumes the employee benefit risks.
Participating in a Captive allows members to benefits from partially owning an insurance company. In this arrangement, plan designs are completely customizable and employers have freedom of choice for Network and Pharmacy Benefit Manager.
There is a possibility that fixed costs may be more expensive. However, potential to receive 100% of surplus along with dividends is attractive. Employers might choose to form a captive as an alternative to traditional insurance in order to better control costs and manage the risks associated with providing employee benefits.
A consortium program is a Self-Funded plan with the protection of Stop Loss Purchasing power. Employers will have the protection to be rated along with hundreds of other companies under the same Stop Loss carrier and therefore receive Stop Loss discounted rates.
This benefits program gives middle market employers (50-1000 employees) collective purchasing power that drives down costs and spreads risk, allowing them to design a long-term cost-effective benefits plan that’s self funded with limited risk. Exude’s clients have exclusive access through Exude’s Solution Builder program.
There is a rise in popularity in Level-funding plans within in the 51-99 market segment. Level-funded arrangements enable employers to benefit from the regular and predictable cost of a fully insured plan with the flexibility of a Self-insured plan and without the uncertainty of fluctuating claims costs. These plans are emerging as a great compromise between fully and self-insured plans as a way to minimize risk with cost predictability.
Level-Funding provides all the same advantages of self-insurance, including greater flexibility than a fully insured plan, so employers can tailor plans to their specific health care needs. Unlike fully-insured plans within the 51-99 market segment, Level-Funded plans allow employers to gain reporting on claims utilization that otherwise is not provided by the carriers within this market segment.
Reference Based Pricing (RBP) is a cost containment strategy that allows employers to set a pricing cap on what they will pay for certain medical services. Compared to traditional funding arrangements, this model can result in total claims savings between 15-30% depending on your area.
Employers are able to save significantly on claims because they are essentially telling the healthcare system that they will not pay more than what the Medicare price dictates for certain services. Learn more about Reference Based Pricing.
Exude partners with professional employer organizations, or PEOs, to provide small and medium-sized companies with cost-effective, outsourced HR services that allow business owners and managers to focus their efforts on high-value activities to grow their business.
Working Together For You
Your employee benefits consulting strategy should fit your employer brand, align with your business goals and attract, retain and motivate your talent. Exude’s benefits consultants will formulate an intentional employee benefits strategy that encompasses all components of total rewards and is aligned with your needs and budget.