After the announcement of newly proposed changes in the healthcare act, employers across the board are rethinking their employee health benefits plan. Employers are revising their plans for two important reasons. Firstly, to deliver better coverage to employees; and secondly to curtail healthcare cost. However, the real question is that, “Is the decision to revise the health benefits plan enough to lower its impact on your financial bottom-line?” Well, this step is important but there are other proactive steps that must be taken by employers to minimize the impact of the rising healthcare costs. And that’s what we’ll focus on in this post.
Identify Common Employee Health Conditions
To keep the healthcare cost low, it’s important to identify health conditions that may be hitting your books greatly. According to a Workplace Wellness survey conducted by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), health conditions that topped the list and significantly impact the organizational health costs included the following:
- Diabetes
- Cancer
- Obesity
- Musculoskeletal problems
- Cardiac diseases
- High blood pressure
- Depression
- High cholesterol
- Smoking
- High risk pregnancy
Furthermore, the study also revealed that:
- Over 75% of healthcare costs are related to chronic conditions.
- Nearly 15% of the employees have diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol but are unaware and undiagnosed.
Manage Chronic Conditions—It’s Essential And Crucial
To curtail the high healthcare cost, employers must look for ways to manage chronic conditions. Chronic healthcare conditions are treatable but only if they are diagnosed and managed timely. Otherwise, they can spiral out-of-control, easily and quickly.
Unmanaged chronic healthcare conditions can impact your business in many ways. They can lower employee productivity and performance, result in absenteeism, and high healthcare cost. It’s important to understand that employees with chronic healthcare conditions normally use more healthcare services like prescription drugs, doctor visits and hospital care—adding to the healthcare cost.
Programs for Disease Management
For substantial reduction in employee healthcare cost and service use, consider introducing disease management (DM) programs. This approach is both proactive and effective. DM programs aim to offer better care while lowering the cost of caring for chronically ill employees.
These programs are typically designed to provide better care to and improve the health of employees suffering from chronic health conditions. The ripple effect of this approach is in the form of reduced healthcare service use and lowere costs linked to avoidable complications like hospitalization and ER visits.
Use Health Screening and Risk Assessment
Detecting a healthcare condition at an early stage can help lower the high cost related to medical expenditures. The best way to do so is to use health screening and risk assessment services. They help employees to identify health conditions and seek treatment to manage the problem effectively before it becomes worse.
To learn more ways to curtail the rising healthcare cost, get in touch with us today. Call us on (877) 355-6070 or email us at info@jsbenefitsgroup.com. Our team will provide you all the information and assistance that you need.
