Choosing the right benefits is just the beginning. Once you’ve chosen a program and enrolled your employees, the hard work is done!
Well, not exactly. You have the first step completed, but it is critical to talk with your employees regularly about their benefits.
Your Employee Benefits are an Investment
As you well know, employee benefits are an investment. Like any investment, you want to maximize its value. When it comes to getting the full value of your benefits, that means helping your employees understand what’s available to them.
Communicating with your employees regularly and consistently about benefits is an essential part of helping your staff get the most out of it.
Effective benefits packages need to be managed, reviewed, and updated.
If your employees don’t understand or don’t use the benefits you’re offering, your investment is going to waste.
It’s not your fault if you’ve encountered challenges. Nearly every business owner struggles. Even with your best efforts to offer relevant benefits, provide resources, and communicate, employees may not understand how to use their benefits fully.
Health insurance is simply difficult to understand. It takes a lot of time, intentional education, and even one-on-one Q&A to help your employees figure out how to put their benefits to good use.
Signs Employees Don’t Understand Benefits
When your employees are at work, they’re likely…working. Many don’t pay too much attention to their benefits program until it comes time to use it for a healthcare need. They just won’t take the time to read a detailed email or read the fine print.
Then the real questions start.
- What is covered?
- How do I choose doctors?
- What facility should I visit for an urgent need or an emergency?
- What IS an emergency?
- Do I have to stay in a certain network and … how do I find out who’s in network?
If your employees are asking questions like these OR you find out you have way more claims than expected, these might be signs your employees don’t understand how to use their benefits.
Not only do you waste your investment, it also does a disservice to your employees.
You’re spending the money to provide a benefits program but employees might be overspending. Perhaps they’re choosing the wrong plan or they’re driving up claims by misunderstanding how to effectively use their plans.
Misunderstanding Benefits Drives Up Costs
Did you know that if you don’t teach your employees how to use their benefits and talk with them about the details (networks, doctors, etc.) it can actually end up costing you AND your employees more money?!
For example, one employer we worked with was surprised to receive a 4% increase in their premium one year during renewal season. They were shocked as this translated to thousands of dollars more (for the same benefits!) and even increased the employee’s monthly premium.
The bottom line was that everyone was going to have to pay more.
In a claims analysis, the insurance carrier showed us exactly where the money was spent.
Employees who used telehealth vs. a doctor in person saved $3K on plan expenses.
That’s a LOT of money!
Now our client knows to talk to their employees about using telehealth first for things like sinus infections, ear aches, and other coughs, colds or nausea. It makes a significant difference on the bottom line for their benefit costs.
Think about urgent care and emergency room visits. When it’s not life-threatening, urgent care facilities can provide a more convenient, affordable way to get medical treatment.
Average urgent care visits typically stay under $200, while emergency room visits are regularly above $1,000, along with a more expensive co-pay.
One study found enrollees and insurers paid $2,453 on average per emergency room visit. The average wait for an ER is also longer. Talk to your employees about the best use of their time and resources so they know where to go before an urgent situation strikes.
3 Steps to Communicate Employee Benefits
Okay so your employees need help to understand – and inevitably, they need someone to guide them. Even if you do your best to educate your employees ahead of time, there will still be questions about treatment options and how to use their benefits.
1. Make Education Ongoing
Offer employees bite-size tips via email or a short lunch and learn to help them understand their benefits. Give them the opportunity to ask questions and go over how they can take advantage of their benefits (for example, if routine physicals are available at no cost, etc.!)
2. Ask for Feedback
What do employees find confusing? Which benefits do they use the most? You can ask them for feedback or let them submit feedback privately via email.
3. Get Help
Managing employee benefits and conducting all the analysis to find out where the gaps are can be tough to handle if you’re doing it all. Working with a benefits team like Advanced Benefit Solutions takes all the management off your plate.
- Employees have questions? You can route those to our team instead.
- Wondering if your benefits are being used? We’ll do the analysis.
- Are employees overspending? Let us figure it out.
- Keeping up to date with compliance and managing new hires? We’ll take care of that.
The best part is that all of this is part of what we do for every client at Advanced Benefit Solutions. We work with you to select benefits and help your employees throughout our entire relationship because it’s an important part of your success as a small business.
If you’re tired of handling your benefits or getting lackluster service from your payroll company, it’s time to get the service you deserve. Give us a call today at 512-291-9300 to meet our team.
