The dramatic increase in healthcare, medicine and procedure costs have outpaced inflation significantly. In today’s age, a person without health insurance — or with a mediocre plan not offering the best coverage available — could become sick and end up bankrupt.
Due to spiraling costs, health insurance is no longer optional for anybody. Gone are the days of luring employees in merely by offering health insurance as a benefit — health insurance has now become an expectation as far as employees are concerned. This means that companies cannot just offer a general plan from a traditional broker, but instead, benefits that compete with their industry competitors.
According to data gathered by Waypoint Benefit Solutions, 50% of employees would leave their current role for a better benefit package. To actively recruit the best in their field, companies must get creative with their benefits — particularly their health insurance benefits — to attract the talent they want.
What Health Benefits Are Employees Looking For?
Employees expect health insurance from their employer because they need it. The vast majority of people are not in a position to pay for medical costs if they become sick and need professional attention.
However, employees are becoming more selective with the benefit packages they accept. Since companies recognize the necessity of health insurance, but still want to make it a competitive perk, potential employees may be able to weigh their options. Even with different options, though, employees still look for several essential features to their health benefits:
Worry-Free Treatment
First, and most importantly, employees want to know that if they become sick or injured and need medical insurance, they’ll be able to receive the treatment they need without having to worry about catastrophic costs.
Prescription Drug Coverage
Second, employees want to know that their required prescription drugs will be covered by their plan. They especially want to make sure that high-cost prescription medications will be covered, and that they won’t have to pay a detrimental amount of money for them.
Medical Procedures
Medical procedures and surgeries, including inpatient and outpatient procedures, are also a coverage priority for employees.
Doctor’s Visits
With skyrocketing healthcare costs, even well visits from a doctor can leave a significant dent in an employee’s budget. Both sick and well visits must be covered under an employee’s healthcare plan in order for them to consider accepting a position.
Specialized Care
More and more frequently, employees are looking for specialized treatments including rehabilitation service, prosthetics, durable medical equipment and treatment care to be covered by their health insurance plan.
How Do I Build a Competitive Health Benefit Plan?
Building a competitive health benefit plan requires more than just relying on the traditional broker and carrier model. Instead, companies must get innovative with their pricing model and understand what it is their employees actually want.
In a perfect world, a company could offer everything employees want covered on their health insurance and employees wouldn’t have to worry about out-of-pocket costs. However, employees must have some financial responsibilities.
Instead of choosing a plan without first consulting your employees, use data mining and feedback forms to understand what your employees want covered the most. This way, you can learn what benefits are most important to your employees and focus on those. You’ll also offer a more competitive benefit plan for your employees without necessarily spending more money.
Ready to Compete with Transparent Healthcare Benefits?
At ClearChain Health, our model utilizes a direct relationship between you, your medical provider and your health insurance. By eliminating the outdated PPO network, employees can nominate their provider and visit whoever they’d like for treatment. Learn more about our competitive model and contact us today!