August 11, 2021
Healthcare costs are a top expense for most businesses, so companies can find great value in cost reduction strategies. And if we can marry lower costs for a business with as good, if not better, benefits and outcomes? That’s the goal. One such strategy that has typically been reserved for only the largest employers is Direct …
August 4, 2021
Grant Thornton, a large accounting company, conducts a survey of CFOs every quarter and their second-quarter survey of 2021 yielded some insights on how finance leaders are thinking about talent shortages and rising employee benefit costs. CFOs and People Leaders See Rising Health Plan Costs as a Challenge The key takeaway is that human capital …
July 28, 2021
We’re starting to see rate increase requests in various states, with some good data coming out of Connecticut recently. These initially proposed rates are for the individual and small group markets, which are filed with the state as part of the ACA. Overall, the rates filed for 2022 are higher than last year. Let’s dive …
July 21, 2021
America’s healthcare system gets wide discussion. Study after study finds that it’s expensive and underperforms comparable systems. When we say that American healthcare is expensive and growing increasingly so year after year, we need to understand why. Why Does Health Insurance Get More Expensive? We assume health insurance will be more expensive every year. Financial …
July 13, 2021
As benefits and healthcare consultants, we salivate over statistics and data about health care costs. We collect and pull apart figures around spending and claims but our clients don’t always want to know all the details. As they say, I don’t want to know how the sausage gets made! Our clients just want us to …
July 7, 2021
While it’s easy to say healthcare needs solutions, we start any consulting conversation with a clear outline of where things are at today, and where we are trying to go in the future. Some key facts about American healthcare: Deductibles are higher than the emergency savings of many Americans Wages have been fairly stagnant over …
June 30, 2021
We think it’s critical in benefits consulting for us to create a common foundation with our clients to drive benefits decisions. There are enough shiny objects in the industry to sideline a conversation and take attention in any one of a dozen different directions. To create meaningful benefits plans that deliver great care to members …
June 23, 2021
We’ve written previously about stop-loss insurance, in particular about the cost of stop-loss insurance, about the effect of CA 161 on stop-loss insurance for California groups, and about statistics around stop-loss insurance claims. With many groups approaching their benefits renewal later this year and considering ways to reduce their healthcare spending, let’s revisit how stop-loss …
June 16, 2021
Healthcare costs are increasing. These increases are leading to reduced benefits, lower takehome pay for workers, and poorer health outcomes. According to the 2021 Milliman Medical Index and the 2020 KFF EMployer Health Benefits Survey, healthcare costs and health insurance premiums are increasing year over year. Over the last 5 years, the average family premium …
June 9, 2021
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to healthcare professionals, employers, business leaders, and more at Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Summit 2021 with Solome Tibebu. We covered a number of topics related to behavioral health and how employers can play a role in this important field. You can watch the interview below and …
