Maximizing Your ROI

Rising health care costs are a major issue for our nation and economy as a whole. This area is a serious threat to the profitability margins of employers of all sizes and America's capacity to compete on an ever-increasing global scale.

The cost of health care is reducing capital that employers need for benefits beyond health care, salary increases, new employee costs, employee development costs and general working capital. Many employers find that the cost of providing health care protection is one of their largest expenses. If you are like most firms, health care costs are now your second or third highest line item budget expense. Obviously, current health care cost trends are unsustainable.

Overcoming this problem is possible, but it requires that you— immediately and aggressively —make additional investments in the way of time, creative energy and enthusiasm, and capital. Following our recommended approach will take effort (no pain, no gain…), but it will result in a long-term, positive ROI for both your organization and your employees. To do otherwise will, over time, likely find your employee benefit program in a death spiral wherein you will experience short and long-term employee benefit burdens, and you will not have much, if any, promise for a positive ROI.

We offer sound direction for employers who are looking for comprehensive health care solutions. Unfortunately, too often today, the primary options presented to employers by most insurance agents and brokers only involve employers' reducing benefits, increasing the level of health care premiums that employees must pay, employers' absorbing higher costs or a recommendation that you add to—or wholly replace—your existing benefit plan with a consumer driven health plan (e.g., a health reimbursement arrangement or a health savings account) - or some combination of all of these choices. This focus totally ignores the cost drivers that are actual causes of the health care increases you have experienced.

The past success of managed care and negotiated discounts from providers have run their course, and it is time to focus on what can be done to improve the health risk profile of your employee population. Doing such will reduce your future health care costs. Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) may offer limited benefits in reducing immediate health care costs, but they are symptom-centric. They are not capable of addressing the core causes of rising health care costs. If you wish to learn more about our professional insights in this area, please review an article we have drafted called Consumer Driven Health Plans – The Rest of the Story©.

Benefit Strategies, Inc. (BSI) has long recognized the need for a solutions-driven direction. We have dedicated an enormous amount of time and effort to build a comprehensive health care/health insurance strategy for employers who desire to minimize their health care costs over the long-term. Our direction focuses on two primary strategic subsets:

• Establishing an optimal health risk profile for your employees, as well as a wellness-related direction to improve the workplace culture and overall health consciousness among employees; and,
  
• Securing the best insurance values available in the marketplace for employers. Our collective efforts in #1 will position us to minimize, better control, and, in some cases, eliminate medical risk factors that are causing your health care costs to rise; thus, we will capture deeper leveraging capacity with various insurers who desire to provide your insurance protection.