| MEDICAL
AND OTHER BENEFIT PLANS
A large part of your total operating budget is for wages and employee
benefits, and whether your company is large or small, it can seem
benefits costs—which are now so large they are no longer referred
to as “fringe”—are out of control.
Managing Health Care Costs
There are two major components of health care costs, and within
each of these, three contributing factors. Claims account for 80%
of the costs, and are driven by Price, Demand, and Lifestyle. Retention,
accounting for about 20% of an insurance plan’s costs, is
driven by Administration, Marketing, and Taxes.
BEST SOURCE LLC can bring back control, by focusing much more attention
on claims, without diminishing attention on retention. This may
be done through:
- Alternative funding mechanisms such as self insurance or partial
self insurance
- Alternative plan designs, to incent employees to be partners
with their employers on medical cost management, and reward them
for this
- Reworking employee premium cost sharing, to reflect family composition,
area and industry practices; and
- Other techniques
Interested in learning more? Continue…
For an article on what drives health care costs and how to control
them, please contact
BEST
SOURCE, LLC.
Supplemental Benefits
We can also bring you supplemental plans to broaden your benefits
offerings without driving up company costs. Most employees understand
that an employer cannot furnish all employees with every benefit
that every employee wants. They appreciate the availability of purchasing
coverage, especially when it can be done on a pre-tax basis. Interested
in learning more? Continue…
Limited Medical Policies
Employers in many industries which hire many low wage and/or part
time employees are seeking ways to attract and keep the best of
these workers, yet not incur additional wage and benefit costs which
would cause non-competitive pricing.
There are different ways to approach this but one is called Limited
Medical. These policies pay for doctors’ office visits and
sometimes other expenses such as prescription drugs and diagnostic
tests, and limit the amount of each that will be covered. The employees'
annual expenses are covered 70% of the time, and the presence of
coverage gets them to a doctor sooner and gets serious illnesses
diagnosed much sooner. If hospitalization is required, the “Social
Safety Net” still pays, but it pays less, and the person suffers
less.
Even if the employer pays nothing for the coverage, which may cost
$30 per month, give or take, for an individual, limited medical
policies can be an attraction and retention tool. Interested in
learning more? Continue…
Workers Compensation Insurance
If there is anything that is going up faster than medical and drug
costs, it’s the cost for Workers Compensation. BEST SOURCE
LLC can find non-typical solutions, such as combining your group
under a larger group of other employers, for more buying leverage,
and being sizeable to manage some self insured risk. We can find
markets for high risk occupations. Does a 20% savings sound good
to you? Continue…
LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE (LTCi)
One of three men and one of two women can expect to experience Long
Term Care in their lifetimes, about 42% overall. And 12% of us will
need it for more than six years. By contrast, the chances of using
your home owners insurance are about 1.1% and the chances of using
your auto insurance are about 2.1%.
Continue…
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