Employee Benefits Blog

The #hashtag turned 10 years old in 2017. Like many other internet phenomena, it’s hard to imagine life without it. Although hashtags can be used to entertain and enlighten, they are also incredibly useful for businesses. With 328 million active users, Twitter (much like LinkedIn) offers a great opportunity for Human Resources (HR) Directors and other HR professionals to gather new ideas for their organization and spread useful information. When HR professionals use Twitter hashtags effectively, people can more easily find and share their content.

Here at the JP Griffin Group, we use Twitter hashtags all the time to help us stay abreast of industry specific employee benefit news and to stay plugged into other thought leaders in the employee benefits space. If you’re new to hashtags, here is some of our seasoned advice on how to find the best Twitter hashtags and what makes them so valuable.

6 Ways to Find the Best Twitter Hashtags

Twitter is a social media platform built on real time, rapidly changing news and events. In other words, it’s constantly evolving and new hashtags trend every day. That being said, some hashtags have more staying power than others. Part of incorporating hashtags into your HR-related content is knowing how to find relevant hashtags in the first place.

Here are six ways to find the best Twitter hashtags:

In the never-ending quest to decrease employee benefits spending on healthcare, some employers are turning to a somewhat revolutionary concept called reference based pricing. This switch is most common among large employers (500 employees or more) who are self-funded, and is gaining popularity rather quickly. For those who may be interested in implementing such a program, it’s important to understand how it differs from traditional healthcare plans, as well as how it will affect those enrolled in it.

What Is Reference Based Pricing?

Reference based pricing (RBP) is a system that some employers have started to use for cost containment purposes. This method is different from more traditional pricing options in that the employer caps the amount they’ll agree to cover for certain non-emergent medical procedures that can vary greatly in price yet not in outcome, such as hip or knee replacements.

Voluntary benefits have been particularly popular in the past few years as healthcare costs rise and employers continue to shift more of the cost burden onto employees. Benefits that were once completely or partially financed by the employer, such as dental and vision, are sometimes now voluntary. A growing number of employers have also replaced low deductible health plans with high deductible health plans.   

But if you’re not careful, cutting these types of benefits can present a coverage gap for your employees, many of whom are not prepared to take the hit on unexpected medical expenses. This could leave you with a financially insecure workforce — not to mention a stressed, unhealthy and ultimately unhappy one. Offering voluntary benefits can be a meaningful addition to an employee benefits package and a win for employees and businesses alike: employees feel as though they have helpful supplements to their health insurance, and employers don’t have to increase their health care budget to offer them.

Required Benefits vs. Voluntary Benefits

As we’ve discussed in the past, certain employee benefits are required by law, and employers who fail to provide them can be hit with serious — and costly — penalties. These benefits include social security and Medicare withholding, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation benefits. Depending on where an employer is located and how many employees it has, it may also be required by law to provide disability insurance, FMLA benefits and “acceptable” health insurance per federal statute.

Voluntary benefits, on the other hand, are usually paid 100% by the policyholder, and employers are neither expected nor required to cover any portion of the premium. Furthermore, what constitutes a “voluntary benefit” is frequently up for debate — some claim it’s a benefit paid entirely by the employee, while others say it can include benefits that are partially subsidized by the employer. In reality, almost all benefits are voluntary, as employees can waive coverage as long as a benefit is not required by law.

With healthcare costs continuing to rise, small employers that aren't obligated to offer health/medical insurance per the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “employer mandate” have been dropping group coverage. This is a trend that started in 2009 during the recent recession. Some larger employers have also considered doing the same (though, they must pay steep ACA penalties if they do). At first glance, it might seem like this would bolster the health and stability of the individual insurance market. Despite the numbers of insured rising, however, increased costs and fewer options have put a serious squeeze on what was once a very healthy marketplace.

Group Health Insurance and Individual Health Insurance by the Numbers

Occasionally, a news piece predicts major shifts in the health insurance landscape, including dire predictions about employers dropping group health plans due to their high costs. However, it’s important to look closely at these numbers, as well as the size of the companies cited in the statistics.

3 Great TED Talks in The Era of Consumer-Driven Healthcare (CDHC)

Initial indicators suggest that consumer-directed health plans are indeed succeeding on several fronts; primary care engagement is up, trips to the emergency room are down, health savings account (HSA) balances are rising, and most importantly, health care spending is falling by 5 to 14 percent. But there's a big roadblock to CDHC / CDHP adoption: rampant consumer confusion.

That was the chief point from Harry Gottlieb, during a keynote address last Wednesday at the Human Resource Executive Health and Benefits Leadership Conference.

At least two of the pitfalls with Consumer-Driven Health Care (CDHP) and Consumer-Driven Health Plans (CDHP) are the rampant growth in options and the fundamental belief that humans make intuitive, rational decisions. If only that were true!

So what can we do about it? Fortunately, there are a multitude of behavioral studies to help guide our understanding of this phenomenon, as well as lay out a roadmap for us to follow to facilitate better decision making.

Here are what we, as the JP Griffin Group, consider to be three of the most relevant, informative and actionable TED Talks on audience segmentation, behavioral economics and the cognitive limitations of humans when faced with choice.

#1) "Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce", by Malcolm Gladwell

Struggling to find the perfect medical plan and perfectly optimized employee benefits portfolio for your entire work force? This TED Talk makes the case that we are not one homogenous group of consumers, no matter what the category for consideration, be it coffee, soda, healthcare, financial services and even spaghetti sauce. The concept is presented in a highly entertaining fashion by one of the best storytellers of our day, Malcolm Gladwell, author of such best selling books as Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink and other works that focus on the unpredictable things that people do in the course of their normal lives. Gladwell sets out to explain how a guy by the name of Howard Moskowitz reinvented tomato sauce – a challenge given to him by the Campbell Soup Company when he was asked to create the “perfect” sauce.

It seems like the only thing we can talk about these days is the rising cost of healthcare. Whether it’s in the news or in the boardroom, healthcare costs are a major topic of conversation — and with good reason. Healthcare costs have been increasing for decades with no apparent end in sight. There are many differing opinions on how exactly to decrease costs and even more debate as to the cause behind them. What is the reasoning behind the drastic increases?

While that question may have many answers, one of the most impactful is the effect of chronic conditions, which require constant care from medical professionals. Chronic conditions range in severity and attention needed to manage them, which can dramatically affect the healthcare costs associated with them.

A recent study by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization committed to making “the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous,” looked into chronic conditions in the United States and their effect on healthcare costs. Their findings were both surprising and disheartening — but they do help explain at least one reason why overall costs are increasing so dramatically.

What Is a Chronic Condition?

A chronic condition is an illness that lasts for a prolonged period, but most definitions do not specify an exact period of time. For the purposes of the RAND study, they defined the term as a “physical or mental health condition that lasts more than one year and causes functional restrictions or requires ongoing monitoring or treatment.”

By this definition, we could assume that the term “chronic conditions” includes ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, anemia, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and mood disorders, among many others.

What Causes (and Contributes to) Chronic Conditions?

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), there are four major health risk factors that “cause much of the illness, suffering, and early death related to chronic diseases and conditions.” They are:

As the cost of healthcare continues to rise with seemingly no end in sight, employers of all sizes across the entire country are looking for ways to cut costs without compromising the quality of care. Many employers have already moved toward consumer directed healthcare, but another strategy some employers are turning toward is value-based insurance design (VBID).

While value-based insurance design is far from a topic discussed at the dinner table, it isn’t a new concept. In fact, one state adopted this plan design in 2008 and some principles of VBID, such as low-cost preventative care and wellness visits, were incorporated into Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

VBID takes a very different approach than HDHPs (high deductible health plans)  when it comes to trying to save employers and employees money, so if you’re thinking of making a change to your employer-sponsored health insurance, it’s important to understand exactly what you’re signing yourself (and your employees) up for.

What Is Value-Based Insurance Design?

Value-based insurance design is a cost containment strategy being adopted and tested by some employers. This plan structure is different from traditional health insurance plans in that its purpose is to decrease costs for medical services deemed as “higher value,” while increasing costs for those considered to be “low value.”

More and more, employers are looking for innovative ways to increase the value of their employee benefits packages without breaking the bank. Oftentimes, this comes in the form of unique employee perks which attempt to depart from the tried-and-true. 

While this quest for creativity should be commended, no matter how well intentioned, sometimes the best laid plans wind up backfiring in spectacular fashion. To keep this from happening, it’s a good idea to vet your ideas with a representative cross-section of your workforce before introducing them to the entire company. Role playing worse case scenarios as an HR team might also help mitigate any disasters. Here are five examples of good employee perks gone bad.

Penny Wars for a Good Cause

“At a previous employer, we had a ‘penny wars’ competition to raise money for a good cause. It was part of a lot of fun activities for the annual workplace giving campaign and employee engagement (which was a good idea). Employees donated coins in jars labeled with each executive’s name. The executive whose jar collected the most money would get a pie in the face. When the CEO won, the penny jars quickly disappeared as it didn’t seem like a good idea to pie the CEO in front of employees — and no one wanted to be the one to actually do it.”

• Amanda, Chief Marketing Officer at Health Charities

This June, Arizona experienced a near-historic heat wave that caused all kinds of strange things to happen, such as cacti falling over and planes being grounded. This is a safety concern for everyone, as heatstroke is a very real problem that causes death every year, especially among the infant and elderly populations. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported nearly 3,500 heatstroke-related deaths between 1999 and 2003.

Taking precautions at work, at home, and while on the road is extremely prudent. It can help keep your workforce safe by literally saving lives and/or helping prevent hospitalization. So as we enter August, in what is typically the hottest month of the year, consider implementing these tips in your workplace. Pass them along to your employees as well so everyone can be vigilant.

ON THE ROAD

Keep Extra Water in Vehicles

For companies with a workforce on the roads, it’s a great idea to keep extra water stocked in all work vehicles. Supplying large volume coolers will help encourage employees to stay hydrated. Even warm water stored in a truck will come in handy should an unanticipated roadside breakdown occur.  

As the third or fourth largest line item on most business’ profit and loss statements, employee benefits have been under pressure for years. Rising costs have impacted both employers and employees, but cutting benefits or pushing more of the financial burden onto employees will only exacerbate hiring and retention struggles. And as employers have figured out by now, relying on a once a year negotiation with their medical carrier is by no means an effective or sustainable way to curb costs.

While putting all your eggs in one basket by attempting to contain employee benefits cost via an annual renewal negotiation is still more mainstream than the exception, employers would realize far more sustainable savings if they sat down with an employee benefits broker who is dedicated to year-round cost saving strategies. Additionally, renewal negotiations, which are still very much a part of cost containment, should not only be focused on price, but also on the multitude of contractual issues which, when thoroughly reviewed, can yield substantial cost savings.

The three areas we consider of greatest importance to sustainable employee benefits cost savings are 1) wellness through the identification and management of chronic conditions within an overall health plan, 2) high-dollar claims intervention, and 3) the effective purchasing of healthcare in the open market.

Wellness Through the Identification and Management of Chronic Conditions

When designed effectively, with targeted population health data to guide the way, wellness programs can be very effective in bringing down the overall cost of your employee benefits program. But wellness programs should not be solely focused on modifying behavioral health patterns such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor eating habits. In fact, by promoting age appropriate screenings, preventative care participation, and medication adherence for chronic conditions, wellness plans can really pay off in the long run.

Chronic conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, depression, back pain, and heart disease represent a significant risk for an overall health program. These conditions present challenges in direct medical expenses as well as indirect costs such as lost productivity and absenteeism. In our experience, members with chronic conditions typically make up 25 percent of the overall population, but are responsible for 75 percent of overall healthcare spending. Programs geared towards disease management, medication/standard of care adherence, and unidentified conditions present the greatest opportunity for cost containment and large claim mitigation in employee benefits programs.