Are you Ready for (football) Open Enrollment?

The change of the season brings fall colors, football games, cooler weather and for HR and benefits specialists – health plan open enrollment. As families rake up leaves in the front yard, their HR team is piling up information on what health plans will be offered and how much they will cost.

A MetLife 2006 Study of Open Enrollment Benefits Trends found a majority of workers look forward to fall open enrollment period as it makes them feel “responsible” – like a good protector. Two-thirds believe the cost of benefits offered by the employer is less expensive than if bought on an individual basis. Even so, premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage rose an average of 7.7 percent in 2006, according to the 2006 Employer Health Benefits Survey released by Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Education Trust.

With the price tag on health care continuing to climb, employers are reviewing other strategies to control cost. This includes moving toward consumer driven health care, which requires employees to shift from mere health care beneficiaries to health care consumers through education and changes in spending habits. Employers must educate employees on the true cost of health care.

To make the best benefit decisions, employees are looking for quick and easy support tools and workplace advice. Seven of 10 employees spend an hour or less reviewing their current benefits and selecting new coverage options. Therefore, it’s necessary to provide advice that is succinct and I believe that should be easy to understand. Employees under the age of 35 particularly want personalized guidance and rules-of-thumb for benefit options, according to the MetLife survey. The employer’s role is shifting to one of customized support, education and coaching to help employees make the right benefit decisions for them and their families.

Most employees are open to changing behavior if they see that their employer’s initiatives are in their best interests. Many employees believe their employer plays a role in bringing tools, information and a road map to help them become better consumers of health care and better managers of their own health.

Employers providing tools for the best health care choices can also look at other avenues to encourage better consumerism. One strategy is providing employees with an incentive to maintain good health. A PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Management Barometer found that only one in five executives stated the health status of the workforce has improved over the past two years. A majority of those polled offered employee programs or incentives for a healthy lifestyle and provided information on quality of health care.

This trend indicates many employers are trying to boost efforts to improve their workers’ health and productivity including adding wellness programs. A survey (2005/2006 Staying@Work) found more than four out of ten employers are already incorporating health and productivity initiatives into their overall health care planning, while nearly 32 percent plan to do so within the next year. Some of these programs include: Employee Assistance Program, Return-to-Work Program, Health Promotion Program, Health Risk Appraisals, Work and Family Balance, Paid Time Off Banks and Personal Health Coach/Advocate.

Communications that can assist employees to become better health care consumers include:

• Access to health related websites
• Information from health related booklets, brochures and newsletters
• Toll-free telephone number access to a nurse or nurse practitioner to discuss individual health issues and how to best access the medical care delivery system
• Financial incentives for healthy behavior
• Access to a confidential health risk assessment to help identify individual health risks

As employees become better consumers, cost savings are reaped in two areas: increased knowledge about the benefits and increased knowledge about medical costs.

Infinisource, Inc. is available to help employers and agents/brokers better design a solution through Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts, Health Savings Accounts or use of HR BenefitSolved to increase consumerism within their workforce. For more information about any of these services, open enrollment communications and the rising cost of health care, please visit our website at www.benefitsolved.com, contact our Sales team at 800-779-6384 or e-mail us at solutions@infinisource.net.

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