Predictability goes a long way. You need a plan that aligns with your school’s values and works when your people need it. They depend on their policy. But this can be difficult to provide when you don’t know what to expect and can’t plan ahead.

Many of our clients receive renewal increases of 10-20% with only a few weeks notice, leaving them with no time to look at alternative options or strategies to manage the cost.

That 20% increase is painful, no matter what, and you should have the time to plan accordingly. Practically speaking, you should know your renewal options four months ahead of time, if not earlier. By getting information sooner, you can create a better annual renewal with improved predictability, reducing surprises and stress.

You need that foresight.

If you are self-funded, you generate this data internally throughout the year and can see how your benefits are trending. But, if you are fully insured, you are likely to see your benefits handed to you promptly before renewal, with a high increase. You become handcuffed to the options, with no time to make an appropriate decision.

If you request this information earlier, brokers and carriers may say they need more data, yet more often than not, that data doesn’t change significantly enough to justify a delay. There is a missed opportunity where they could give you that visibility, but they are typically focused more on efficiency and profit than your operations and budget. You need proactive guidance and support.

There are options if there is time.

If you have been surprised by your renewal you have options NOW to fix that. We have been able to add flexibility and visibility to groups. In a recent interaction, we were able to cut their rates by 31%, WHILE moving them to an 18-month contract that starts July 1st, saving them additional money. A good advisor can act on your timeline and budget.

You aren’t stuck for the entire year.

If this sounds familiar to you, possibly from Jan 1 of this year, there are steps you can take to help you plan ahead:

Get your data. Having visibility into where the increase came from will help you better understand your plan and give you an idea of what to expect.
Work with an advisor to help you understand the data. They have the expertise to dig into your data and show you how your plan is running.
Weigh your options. Your advisor should also help you decide what the best options are for your business and your people.

You need to find a solution that provides you with more predictability. You don’t need predictability to fight increases, although that is important, you need to plan accordingly, to feel more confident and prepared.

A good thing to remember is that a cost increase filters downhill. Deductibles go up for employees. Your coverage can change. That unpredictability is extremely painful for your people. A dramatic change can undermine their trust and hurt your retention efforts.

Predictability creates a sense of control and dependability for employees.

Now is the time.

Talking to your advisor now can better prepare you to make appropriate adjustments, provide important data to stakeholders for budgeting purposes and allow you to better maintain a benefits plan that your school can be proud of.

Your organization needs to be able to plan ahead. Not just for the financial department, but for you, HR, and your people. Eliminate the uncertainty of renewal time. Know what to expect, plan ahead and achieve a jumpstart to a valuable benefits plan. We can help, let’s chat about it.

Uncategorized

Meeting You Where You Are – Even With a Zero Dollar Budget

March 1, 2022

Offering group healthcare is something many small Christian schools and churches want to do, however, for some of them, the idea feels out of reach. The thought of making changes to a current plan starting with zero budget or struggling to maintain the existing budget can feel overwhelming.

Tight funds can make healthcare goals seem unattainable for large schools also. Many who may offer group insurance already could be looking into self-funding their plan to benefit from potential cost savings.

There is a way to scale into a practical healthcare plan, one that will work for your organization.

We know money is a big concern for many schools and churches, large or small. Wanting to provide the best for your people and business can feel difficult to accomplish with limited resources. We also know that extreme changes and large jumps in existing plans aren’t practical.

Usually, if you want to provide a group plan for your school, we estimate your cost per employee and say that number will be X. If you need ten people on that plan, you need to figure out how to go from a zero dollar budget to a 70 or 100,000 budget. An intimidating task to accomplish.

So, let’s meet where you are.

If you are at zero dollars, let’s start there. We know that a 70 – 100,000 increase in budget feels unrealistic. Instead, let’s build a strategic plan where each month you contribute more to each employee’s health insurance, gradually making a difference.

With a strategic plan, we can focus on how your short and long-term goals will be met. As an ongoing process, we use available knowledge and set your organization’s intended direction to get you where you want to be. Beginning where you are.

The choice to keep your benefits the way they are can be easy. But continuing with your current benefits will create the same problem next year — no access to improved healthcare benefits for your people.

There are more options than you think, even with a zero-dollar budget.

You can facilitate your plan as a voluntary offering, like Obamacare — which can provide more extensive coverage without added costs. Or group care, an option that allows small employers to collectively offer healthcare to their employees.

Start there, and then contribute in different ways to build your plan up. There are a lot of subsidies currently available right now that can help small schools and churches get the healthcare they need for their people.

The passion to provide your employees with the best coverage is strong and for some, that desire comes ahead of personal income. In that case, the government can cover a great deal of the premium for you. This enables a small Christian school to expand into group healthcare plans without having to jump.

Changing your benefits, even in small ways, is an impressive turning point for any organization. By investing the time to review your insurance options and design the right strategic plan, you can find the right plan that meets your employees’ needs.

Offering group healthcare with a zero-dollar budget can feel impossible. But by meeting you where you are, discussing your goals, and designing a strategic plan we can unlock the hidden potential within your healthcare plan.

Uncategorized

Save Costs During Renewal Time and Give Back

February 3, 2022

As an employer, you’ve likely had a really bad experience (or two) with healthcare renewals and outrageous price hikes. These price increases are a common occurrence with many fully insured plans. Increases of 30 or 40% due to past claims or a high claimant (even if that person is no longer on the plan) can affect your school board in a negative way.

But what if those price hikes were reversible?

Recently, one of our clients received a 30% increase because of a high claimant on their plan, however, the employee that was responsible for the high claims left the company in July. Our clients were being penalized for a past high claimant. After digging through the data we were able to move our client to a different insurance environment that recognized the difference in their reality.

We were able to secure a 15% decrease for this client.

With this unlocked revenue, they were able to lean into their culture and better achieve their goals: to take care of their people. They are now able to provide enhanced benefits and truly give back to their employees aligning with the company’s overall vision.

Another client faced a 25% increase, but through appropriate risk evaluation and pursuing better alternatives, we secured a 19% decrease. This money was then used to lower employee contributions, essentially giving their people a pay raise.

We see increases like this frequently at renewal time, but with careful analysis and research into the plan, those costs can be reversed.

The impact of high costs is evident.

These high increases in renewals can not only affect the company’s bottom line but impact key stakeholders and employees. From the CEO to the people, a sharp increase in expenses that originate from your employee health insurance plan can impact your people, on an individual level. For example:

CEO’s who are responsible for the culture of a business, keeping the people happy and maintaining positive numbers each quarter are heavily impacted by increases so large.
A CFO wants to provide a generous and competitive plan to employees that doesn’t break the bank. Steep increases in renewal costs can alter this plan and force CFO’s to face an erosion of bottom line performance and possible destruction of budget forecasts causing undue stress.
From an HR perspective, that increase erodes employee compensation, affecting overall employee morale, happiness and satisfaction negatively impacting retention and recruitment.
Employees dealing with increasing premiums, deductibles and copays can leave them feeling frustrated and disappointed creating an unhappy workforce. This can lead to increased employee turnover or a policy that is underutilized.

By using a health plan to effectively solve these problems and manage risks, your key stakeholders all get a win.

Working with a professional, like us, to conduct an appropriate risk assessment and negotiate on your behalf can help you reduce high percentage increases, saving you money that you can use to give back to your people.

For our clients, their renewal was $473,000, with a thorough assessment a new price of $309,000 was secured. We were able to achieve a reduction of $70,000 from what they were currently spending, significant savings that can be used for school improvements, culture, or employees.

If you have experienced a renewal price hike, due to past claims, high claimants or for an unknown cause, reduce the price before it impacts your school. We can help correct these prices, don’t hesitate to call, let’s chat about it.

Uncategorized

Do You Really Know Your Health Insurance Options?

January 27, 2022

If you or a loved one needed to have an operation, you are likely to receive information prior to the surgery regarding potential treatment options, with in-depth explanations of each procedure.

But, how are you supposed to make a choice if you don’t actually understand what is being explained?

In a hospital setting, technical explanations are valued, we need to hear everything about our options. We want to hear the pros and cons, what the doctor is most comfortable with, and what the outcomes could be. We need this knowledge and these recommendations from doctors to effectively weigh the risks and benefits of the decisions we make.

However, this same approach doesn’t work as well when considering employee healthcare insurance. Often, brokers will take an overcomplicated approach when explaining renewals. HR departments often do as well, when they give employees options for their plans. And because the decision is not life or death, we see many clients and employees in a position where they make a decision to relieve the stress of confusion.

At some point, experts need to step back and acknowledge that accuracy is not useful without a foundation of understanding. And without that understanding people are left making decisions blindly. This is unreasonable and puts you into a position where you don’t actually have a real choice.

You are given an illusion of choice.

This is often how health insurance feels for our clients. They are given options and explanations, without enough real context to help make an informed, knowledgeable choice. Leaving them with plans that may not be suitable for their business or employees due to high cost or underutilization.

In health insurance, the information needs to be digestible, presented in a way that actually helps you make effective decisions. If we take the complicated surgical approach to our health insurance we risk losing the reasons why the strategy is suggested in the first place.

Conversations about health insurance should be broken down into pieces, explained, and questioned until everyone truly understands the choices. Your broker should know if the right questions are being asked. If there is enough insight? Is a consultative approach being used to make sure a wise decision is made?

Avoid the confusion and get the answers you need.

Your plan should be presented to you and your staff in a way that is clearly understandable. We don’t need to understand how to build a custom watch. We need to start with telling time, then go deeper.

As experts, in any profession, we have this desire to give intense details, be transparent, and describe all potential outcomes to those who need the explanation. However, if the scenarios don’t make sense, if the explanations are not understood, this level of depth may only create fear.

If you have questions about your policy or don’t truly understand your options, don’t hesitate to reach out. We can give you the clarity you need to ensure you are providing the most cost-effective, beneficial plan for your school and employees.

Don’t be affected by the illusion of choice. Let’s keep it simple.

Uncategorized

Maintain Your Momentum to Meet Your Benefit Goals

December 7, 2021

Now is not the time to take your foot off the gas for your employee benefits strategy. Your employee benefits are an essential part of your competitive compensation packages and you need to maintain your momentum to reach your goals.

You need to look at your benefits policy in a strategic way, aligning them with your company’s mission, adapting and adjusting as needed to achieve the best program for your staff and school.

To do this an in-depth review of what happened in 2021 should take place, so you can plan for 2022 to focus on 2023, allowing you to offer a competitive plan that stays within budget.

Slowing down can cause you to deviate, which can be hard to recover from

Setting your plan and putting it on the shelf following renewal season may seem like the easy thing to do, but if you wait six or more months before considering your employee benefits again, you could be missing out on opportunities to enhance your plan and unlock cost-savings advantages.

Continuing to move ahead at full speed takes time and dedication, but we can help.

Our process is unique and thorough. We look at your benefits as a Healthcare spectrum. First, we establish goals that are ideal for our clients. Then we begin the education process for what will come next, which are the highest value items to pursue.

The education process occurs in the first two quarters and is used to establish decisions that will come for Q3 and Q4. We bring in the right partners, we talk about the pros and cons of these decisions and we answer all of the questions our clients have.

Don’t settle for less when your employees are in question

If you are not a client of ours, you should expect this quality of care from your advisor. They should be able to provide you with the visibility you need by highlighting key points to consider so you can make the best decisions for your people and company.

These points will vary from business to business, however you need to keep your foot on the pedal in order to produce the most advantageous outcomes.

Sometimes an in-depth look into your plan’s administrator is needed. This can reveal how your staff are navigating the healthcare system. How they are selecting high quality providers and if they are getting their prescription needs met.

New technologies, platforms, communication tools and personalized options are made available everyday. Your administrator should be moving forward towards these tools and opportunities to allow your people to get the most out of their benefits.

Remember to think outside of the silo — there’s a lot going on out there

There are several common missteps when employers are considering their employee benefits plan which are:

Delaying. Don’t wait too long to begin your benefits strategy, creating an effective benefits plan that supports your people while keeping costs low takes time.
Not weighing the pros and cons fully. Cost-savings, tax advantages, legal compliance, affordability are just a few aspects of your plan that need to be examined closely.
Being afraid of change. Executing changes can feel overwhelming, but could be crucial in unlocking an efficient benefits program.
Shortcutting the education process. Your people need to know how to navigate their benefits. Implementing benefits training and education sessions throughout the year will work towards a fully utilized plan.
Evaluating benefits decisions in a silo. Your benefits should reflect your holistic business mission. They should adapt with the changing needs of your workforce. If you care about your employees, your benefits program can represent that.
Not involving the whole leadership team in your benefits strategy. Just like other areas of business, team leaders need to be involved in company and project strategy for success, your benefits should be no different.

Continuing to go the distance with your benefits plan during the course of the year will help you achieve the value you need — an effective program that your people can appreciate, while staying on budget.

To get the most out for your employee benefits plan you need to maintain your momentum and reach your goals. Develop a strategy that evaluates your plan’s effectiveness on a recurring basis.

Now is not the time to take your foot off the gas for your employee benefits strategy. If you need help with this, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Uncategorized

Insights

Keeping you informed

The Value of Predictability

Meeting You Where You Are – Even With a Zero Dollar Budget

Save Costs During Renewal Time and Give Back

Do You Really Know Your Health Insurance Options?

Maintain Your Momentum to Meet Your Benefit Goals

Top 5 Books Every Leader Should Read

Time to let it shine

Strengthen your school while protecting its people

1 (317) 522-9966 Contact@CityonaHillHealth.com

Info

The High Ground