Employee Benefits Blog

When building a comprehensive benefits package, many business owners are (understandably) grateful just to be able to offer medical coverage. But some employers also tend to leave out voluntary benefits, which can enrich the employment experience and be a helpful recruitment tool for potential employees — all at little or no cost to the employer. If voluntary benefits are outside your purview, check out this quick-reference guide to fill in the blanks.

What Are Voluntary Benefits?

While the definition of voluntary benefits has become somewhat blurred over the years (and are sometimes referred to as worksite benefits or even ancillary benefits) they are, for the most part, insurance products meant to fill in healthcare gaps where health, dental, and vision insurance might not reach, and can increase the value of your employee benefits package. Typically, voluntary benefits are paid in full by the employee and made easy through payroll deductions — most of the time at a lower rate than what can be found on the individual market and frequently taken out of wages pre-tax.

Common examples of voluntary benefits include:

• Accident Insurance: Provides compensation to employees if they suffer major physical harm due to an accident. Some insurance policies even reimburse employees for seeing their doctor a couple times per year.
• Critical Illness: Provides a lump sum to enrollees in the event of a critical illness (such as a heart attack or stroke) which can be used to pay medical or non-medical expenses (like child-care) while an employee is unable to work.
• Cancer Insurance: In the event of a cancer diagnoses, an enrollee receives money with which to pay for treatment and sometimes, to help pay non-medical expenses.

Are you missing the mark with your efforts designed to promote wellness, as well as target other population health issues? Is this inability to effectively target the right employees as well as drive real behavioral change driving up your claim costs, and ultimately your premiums?

If you’re like most small businesses, you’re relying on your employee benefits broker to help out in this area. Unfortunately, most brokers aren’t equipped to help you “unearth” these issues and they certainly aren’t staffed to help guide any effort towards taming your workforce’s true health issues. In fact, when faced with this challenge, most brokers typically hand their clients a set of somewhat generic carrier-generated posters and flyers and call it their “strategic communications plan.”

Here is what you should expect from your employee benefits broker and why customized content is far more effective than cookie-cutter fliers in the break room.

Flying Blind With Generic Marketing Pieces Just Doesn’t Cut It

Setting aside the inability to identify and target true population health risks for a moment, let’s just talk about the efficacy (or inefficacy more likely) of these communication materials. Generic fact-sheets frequently miss the mark because they are written for such a general audience that they fall flat and lack a meaningful call-to-action.

When starting a business, most entrepreneurs want to attract employees by offering them a robust benefits package. Then, reality sets in, and they realize that this will have to wait until they establish positive cash flow. Well regardless of if an employer is just starting out or if they’re already well established, employers need to realize that there are certain required employee benefits they MUST offer in order to maintain compliance with the law; failure to do so can trigger large penalties. Here are required employee benefits employers cannot skip — and some that are only applicable as a business grows.

Required Employee Benefits For Employers of Any Size

1. Social Security and Medicare Benefits

Every employer, regardless of size, is subject to the required employee benefit of matching their employees’ social security and Medicare contributions. The current rate for social security is 6.2 percent of the employee’s wage from each party, equalling 12.4 percent in total, up to the first $127,200 in earnings. This amount is also known as the “wage base limit.”

While employers across the country are battling the rising cost of health care, Arizona employers are facing unique challenges of their own. Arizona’s border with Mexico presents unique circumstances many states don’t encounter, and certain state laws have created a challenging environment for employers to cultivate meaningful employee benefits packages. Here are four issues Arizona employers are facing in 2017 when it comes to employee benefits:

Arizona Employee Benefits Issue #1: Lack of Exchange Options

For small businesses with fewer than 50 full-time equivalents (FTEs), offering a SBHRA (Small Business Healthcare Reimbursement Arrangement) can be a challenge. Taking advantage of newly passed legislation regarding SBHRAs should generally help small businesses with recruitment and retention — however, the lack of Exchange options in Arizona is likely to frustrate employees, rather than appeal to them.  

This lack of Exchange options means competition is virtually non-existent, which generally leads to higher healthcare prices. Of course, this means employees are having difficulty finding affordable healthcare that fits within their budget, leading some employers to feel obligated to increase the amount they offer via SBHRAs.

Many employers are making the move from traditional healthcare plans such as HMOs, POSs, EPOs, or PPOs, to high deductible health plans, commonly referred to as HDHPs. Employers find that HDHPs allow them to save on premium costs while at the same time encouraging workers to become more active and educated consumers of healthcare. Some companies might offer HDHPs as one of two or more medical plan options, although this strategy does them little good in terms of saving money if the majority of employees fail to adopt an HDHP plan.

Regardless of the options employers choose to offer, consumer-driven healthcare is on the rise and high deductible health plans aren’t going away anytime soon. As they continue to become more and more prevalent, it’s important for HR to step up their communication efforts. Employees will be (understandably) concerned and confused by the differences in HDHPs, but it’s nothing education, patience and a bit of behavioral economics knowledge can’t solve to ward off buyer's remorse. Here are some ways to help employees embrace high deductible health plans.

1. Communication is Key

As with any other change in your company, you must be very explicit and intentional in your communication. Remember that people like to have explanations for what is happening (and why), rather than have changes dictated to them without any kind of supporting information. Just remember Benjamin Franklin's oft-cited adage "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."

When introducing a HDHP, it's critical to hold an active (vs. passive) enrollment. It's also smart to hold an open enrollment meeting so your employees can ask you questions - just make sure they’re prepared for it by sending out the benefits information a few days prior to presentation. In this way, they'll have time to review the information and come prepared with any questions they might have. Be as candid as possible so they feel as though you’re understanding their concerns - and do your best to be as patient as you can to assuage their fears. This course of action will go a long way toward a smooth transition.

2. Educate Employees about How High Deductible Health Plans Work

If your employees have never been enrolled in a high deductible health plan before, they’ll have plenty of questions about how they work. Why aren’t there copays? How much does an office visit cost at the doctor? What if one of the members on the plan is seriously injured? For what type of person are HDHPs most appropriate? Although HDHPs are growing in popularity among employers, employees tend to know very little about them and therefore, shy away from them.

Some companies regrettably try to "go it alone" when it comes to crafting healthcare and employee benefits programs for their workforce. Perhaps because of a previous broker relationship which they feel didn't bear much fruit, some companies discount the impact a talented employee benefits broker can have on their business. Others fear that the services of a broker will be too expensive, or that it will be difficult to find one they can trust. Despite these objections, most HR professionals will concede that any decent employee benefits adviser knows far more about healthcare and the field of employee benefits than they ever could.

It's true that some employee benefits brokers are essentially "order takers" — simply taking instruction from employers who think they know best and/or are looking to get their benefit selections done as quickly as possible. The really good ones, however, will help companies approach their benefits programs in a highly strategic fashion, thereby driving impactful investment decisions while at the same time identifying critical savings opportunities.

Developing this symbiotic relationship with your benefits broker is a two-way street; these consultants and advisors can’t do all the work alone. To maximize impact, they need your assistance and cooperation. In that regard, here are a few things you can do to ensure you’re getting the best work out of your employee benefits broker — not just during open enrollment, but all year round.

State lawmakers are currently reviewing a piece of legislation that could improve Arizona healthcare for a number of residents. Senate Bill 1441 seeks to solve a common Arizona healthcare problem: surprise medical bills from out-of-network physicians after receiving treatment or having surgery through in-network providers. It’s a frustrating (and confusing) situation, especially for those who have done their research beforehand to make sure all providers were covered by their insurance policy. How are people getting unexpected bills? And what will this legislation do about it?

The Arizona Healthcare Problem: Surprise Bills

In the state of Arizona, people seeing in-network doctors and utilizing in-network hospitals systems frequently receive surprise bills from out-of-network providers. It’s become a common Arizona healthcare narrative these days. If it hasn’t happened to you, you probably know someone who has encountered this issue in the past.

How does this happen? Well, it’s actually pretty complicated.

Let’s say you need surgery. You do your necessary diligence by researching the hospital, the surgeon, and the other doctors you know you’ll be in contact with. You make sure they’re all in-network so you’re minimizing the bills you receive after the fact. Everyone (including the hospital network) is covered. You should be all set, right?

Since the inauguration of a new president in January, healthcare legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a hot topic of conversation, not only among employers and healthcare providers, but many American citizens as well. Multiple rumors have been making their way down from Capitol Hill, but it appears as though we finally have some concrete ideas from House Republicans — even if they aren’t fully fleshed out in terms of finances. 

Regardless of what healthcare legislation is passed, it is largely expected that the employer mandate will be repealed, which will have some sort of effect on many American employers. Let’s take a look at the proposed healthcare legislation and other documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to determine what employers might be able to expect from lawmakers in the coming months.

The New GOP Healthcare Bill

On Monday, March 6, 2017, House Republicans released what is being collectively referred to as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which is intended to partially repeal, but also replace the ACA. As anyone might expect in a heated political climate, the proposed healthcare legislation has been met with mixed reviews.

The proposed bill would keep some of the popular components of the ACA, such as the provisions that prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or capping the amount of benefits received in one year (or a lifetime). In addition, people would be allowed to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans up to age 26.

While pre-existing conditions would no longer be a reason insurance companies could deny coverage, they would be allowed to charge up to 30 percent more for enrollees who let their coverage lapse. Coverage lapses are common among those suffering from chronic illnesses or serious medical conditions because they are likely to miss work for an extended period of time. Since the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) only protects workers for 12 weeks, those receiving extensive treatments (such as chemotherapy) are some of the most commonly affected by lapses.

Some employers choose to take on employee benefits administration with paper forms and spreadsheets, thinking they’ll save money. They see the cost of online automation, coupled with the monthly commitment — usually per employee, per month (PEPM) — and find it hard to believe the benefits of the software would be worth the investment. It’s true that employee benefits administration software is not free, but the benefits of automation far outweigh the cost.

The reality of the situation is that regulation complications, paperwork, and human error end up costing employers far more time than it's worth. And of course, that doesn’t include the fines your business could incur as a result.

Here are six ways leveraging employee benefits administration software with automation can save you time and money.

1. Increased Efficiency for Both Employer and Employee

Automated employee benefits administration increases efficiency for both the administrator, and your employees who use it. Regardless of the task you are trying to complete, it will, in short order, take less time when it’s automated as opposed to old-fashioned spreadsheets, or worse, paper. 

Many companies still have employees fill out paper forms, which an HR director or assistant then has to manually enter into a payroll system, an HR system, and the health insurance system. What took two or three people to accomplish could have taken one — the employee — if an employee benefits administration software was used.

With well-organized systems, all of those different parts talk to each other and disperse the information where it needs to go, which means you get to focus on real work instead of paperwork.

Discover how our platform-agnostic approach to automation transformation provides the confidence our clients demand when implementing the perfect platform for any enterprise. Click here to learn more.

Creating a truly competitive and compelling employee benefits package can be a struggle — especially for smaller companies. As an employer, you are required to offer certain benefits, like social security taxes, unemployment insurance, and worker’s compensation, plus some others based upon the size of your company, not the least of which is medical insurance per the ACA's "employer mandate".

Providing employee benefits can get expensive fast, but you can only do what you can afford to do. The goal is to remain competitive in the marketplace, not to become a total outlier. And remember, cost-sharing with employees is normal these days and employees expect to pay a portion of insurance costs.

In addition, there are plenty of low cost (and even no cost) benefit options at your disposal to help sweeten the deal. But where to start? Here is a list of typical benefits packages offered by American businesses.

List of Common Employee Benefits

1. Health Insurance Benefits

This one is a no-brainer. Applicants view medical coverage as one of the most important factors in an employee benefits package and as a result, the majority of employers offer it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 70 percent of civilian companies (and 67 percent of private firms) offered medical insurance to employees in March of 2016 in their company benefits packages.