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Healthcare appears to be reaching a breaking point as costs to employers may become unsustainable. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, nine out of 10 executives say it will be impossible to continue providing employee health benefits by 2030.
Rising medical costs are a challenge, but not impossible. Employers today have many options. Increasingly, companies of all sizes are self-funding employee health care to control costs, and both well-funded and self-funded employers are adopting high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) that require lower premiums.
However, these methods also carry risks. Self-funded employers who don’t take care to control their health care costs may find their costs spiraling upward. At the same time, high deductibles can leave employees with greater medical debt.
However, these cost-saving measures do not need to create huge risks for employers or huge medical debt for employees. Low-cost enhanced health benefits can provide substantial support to employees in any workplace, whether their health plan is fully insured or self-funded.
These improvements are especially beneficial for self-funded employers, whose fees are directly tied to their employees’ medical expenses.
The most effective enhancement an employer can use is the Healthcare Navigator. With a single phone call, employees who work for companies that offer health plan navigators can save money in a variety of ways, lowering overall health care costs for self-funded employers and helping covered employees avoid medical debt.
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price comparison
People often don’t know what their health plan covers until they need to use insurance. This can be a stressful time trying to figure out the cost of necessary surgery. People who need medical care are less likely to shop around and compare prices.
That’s where health care navigators come in: They can compare plan participants and often find a care path that costs far less than what is recommended by the insurance plan or primary care provider. In this way, Navigators can help employees avoid certain costs that might otherwise have a devastating impact on their personal bottom line and the financial health of their self-funded employer.
Bill review
By now, many people are aware that billing errors are very common in the healthcare industry. When a patient pays a bill that they are not actually responsible for, the patient should be refunded the overpaid amount.
However, the average employee may not know they are paying too much or may not have the time to investigate whether their bill is in error. Likewise, self-funded employers may not have the internal resources to conduct such investigative work. Healthcare Navigators know how to spot errors like these quickly and can help employees (and self-funded employers) get the refunds they deserve.
financial support
Often, people are unaware that they qualify for hospital financial assistance. Employees may believe they are ineligible for such a program based on their income, so they do not apply, when in reality financial assistance could save them (and self-funded employers) thousands of dollars.
Healthcare Navigators can direct people to apply through a hospital’s financial aid portal, which can lead to significant immediate savings.
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save time
For the average person who is not familiar with the complex language and structures of the health insurance world, trying to figure out and deal with health care expenses can be very time-consuming.
Frustrating health insurance issues that take plan participants four hours to resolve can be resolved by navigators in just one hour. Time wasted solving problems not only costs employees; They also cost employers money by reducing working hours and tying up human resource resources.
More than just a low-cost plan
While HDHP employees and self-insured businesses will benefit the most from Healthcare Navigator, this policy enhancement has its advantages for any company that provides health insurance to employees.
Regardless of how care is funded or what type of plan an employee signs up for, health care can be intimidating. Any employer that can provide its employees with an ally to fight for the best care at the lowest personal cost is likely to build goodwill among employees and enhance its reputation as a people-first business.
Combining all of these types of cost savings, from pre-processing to bill review, creates a comprehensive number that illustrates the total savings achieved through the use of healthcare navigation services. Depending on the size of the company, this could be as high as millions of dollars.
Understanding the complex and expensive world of health care requires specialized expertise. Healthcare navigation is something employers and employees alike can’t live without.
Related: 6 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Solve Medical Debt
