Open, honest communication is a key sign of a healthy workplace, and this particularly applies to your benefits plan. Benefits are often a confusing and even unpleasant topic for employees who are tired of paying too much for low-quality care, but you and your adviser can change the narrative around benefits by encouraging transparency and thoroughness when discussing them with your employees.

As you work to change your benefits plan for the better, you should also be communicating these changes to your employees in a setting that encourages questions and honest opinions. The more you communicate with your employees about their benefits, the more likely they’ll be to do everything in their power to use the tools and strategies built into the plan.

An Atmosphere of Communication

In discussions about benefits or anything else within the workplace, your employees should feel comfortable communicating with you. Verbal praise and tangible rewards (which you can offer through your benefits plan through bonuses or paid deductibles) are crucial to sending a positive message to your workers and reminding them of their value within your business.

This concept of easy discussion particularly applies to conversations about benefits. When it comes to their plan, your employees should always feel like they’re:

• Up to date – Any changes or updates to your plan should be communicated to your employees as soon as possible.
• Well-educated – A continuous, comprehensive employee education plan is crucial for your workers to understand how their benefits plan works and how they can make the most of it.
• Able to ask questions – Your workers should feel comfortable asking about any aspect of their plan, and there should always be someone who can give them the answers they need.

Good communication is crucial for a healthy workplace environment, and you can create it from within your benefits plan.

Back to Reality

Your employees aren’t operating under the delusion that the healthcare industry is inexpensive and easy to navigate. They’ve likely experienced the worst of the benefits industry for themselves, and when you and your adviser introduce how you’re going to make the experience better for them, they may be skeptical.

You and your adviser need to communicate to your employees that, while change is possible, it will require your workers’ efforts in order to take effect. Be honest with your employees, and explain to them why your plan is implementing these new tools and strategies. All of your workers should understand how their actions help them receive better quality care at a lower cost while also saving the company money. Being transparent with the tough realities of the benefits challenges you face won’t make your uphill climb to better care seem insurmountable to your employees – it will simply leave them better prepared to make the most out of their plan for the sake of everyone involved.

Create a Conversation

Education creates conversation, and this is especially true when referring to your benefits plan. Your workers should be a part of the benefits conversation from day one, but they’ll be more empowered to do so one they better understand how their plan works and what they need to do to get the best results from it.

Over time, your employees may understand their plan so well that they begin to look for solutions on their own. They’ll always have you and your adviser to turn to when they have questions, but the more they can do their own research based on what they know about their benefits plan, the easier it will be for them to make choices about their own care. This empowerment, however, comes from a workplace culture that educates employees year-round about their plan. While a great employer will ensure that everyone in the company feels comfortable talking about their plan, educated workers are far more likely to ask constructive questions and make the benefits conversation one that they feel they can be a part of.

Transparent Benefits

Open communication is necessary for your benefits plan to have its maximum intended impact on your employees and your business as a whole. By creating an overall atmosphere that encourages communication, being honest about the solutions and challenges involved with your benefits plan, and educating your employees about their plan, you can build your workers’ trust while helping them get the best value from their plan.

Contact us today to learn more about how great communication can lead to a great benefits plan.

Technology has made its way into virtually every area of our lives, and it’s only getting more advanced. We can take advantage of it with apps that can control virtually every electronic device in our homes, and now, we can use it to deliver better quality, lower cost benefits to our employees.

These tools are so much more than fancy perks you can add on to your plan – they improve the benefits experience for your employees while driving down costs. By including them in your plan, you’re communicating to your workers that you value their ability to access high-quality, low-cost care, further solidifying your mission to make your employees your number-one priority in your business.

Here’s how technology options in your benefits plan can give your workers a better experience:

A Continuous Effort

I praise the impact of continuous year-long employee benefits education for a reason: it works. While individual and group meetings can be helpful, you can also deliver information to your employees through other means such as:

• Automated text messages
• Regular email blasts
• Online employee portals

Say, for example, that a few of your employees weren’t able to make a meeting outlining new tools and strategies in your benefits plan. Rather than receiving a condensed version of the material covered in the meeting from their employer or a coworker, they could view a video of the meeting in their employee portal. This way, they can access the information at any time straight from the source.

These simple, easy-to-implement strategies can ensure that your employees’ benefits education carries on throughout the year at their fingertips.

Better Access Made Simple

Smartphones, once a tool only for CEOs and tech aficionados, are now a staple in the hands and pockets of people from all social classes. Your employees will likely have a portable computer with them at all times, and you can use that to your advantage in your benefits plan.

Imagine an app that makes your phone vibrate when it places your location at a high-cost medical provider, then gives you nearby alternatives that can offer you a lower copay. Or perhaps a digital assistant asks you, “Are you going to the emergency room?” and gives you suggestions to decrease your costs or find better quality options. This technology is already available, and we can use it to deliver our employees improved care in real time.

Looking Out for the Whole Family

I was able to use technology to improve my own healthcare experience recently thanks to a telehealth app I have on my phone. I felt unwell, so I used to app to connect with someone who scheduled me a remote appointment with a doctor. Within ninety minutes, I was on the phone describing my symptoms to the doctor, who told me which over-the-counter and prescription medications I needed. I called it into the pharmacy and went to pick it up, and that was that – no copay, no needlessly exposing myself to other people (sick or healthy). I had a phenomenal experience that also saved the insurer money in the process.

Imagine the impact of an experience like this on a busy family. If your employee’s child becomes sick at 10 p.m., they might find the local urgent care center closed and feel like they have no choice but to make a hectic and expensive visit to the emergency room. With telehealth options, though, your employee can keep their sick child at home in bed and contact a medical professional who can tell your employee what’s wrong with their child and what steps they should take next. The usefulness of this technology extends beyond one employee’s convenience and reaches their entire family.

Not Sci-Fi, Just High-Quality Care

These tools aren’t wishful thinking inspired by stories about spaceships and robots – they currently exist in our reality, and they can deliver a better, less expensive benefits experience to your employees. Your adviser can implement technological options into your plan that give them accessible and continuous education, real-time provider suggestions, and convenient, low-risk options for their whole family. By implementing this technology into your benefits plan, you can further prove to your employees that their benefits plan is built around the experience that they want and need.

Contact us today to learn more about how to use technology to increase the quality of your benefits plan.

The foundation for any business is its employees. Like wheels on a car, the goods and services your company offers may be the parts of your business that your customers see, but without great employees working as a motor to keep the vehicle running, your company becomes a pile of spare parts.  What many employers fail to recognize, though, is that their employees – like a motor – can’t run without proper fuel and care. Their employees’ needs get lost in the hustle of trying to push their product to the top, and that short-sightedness can cost them revenue or even their entire business.

The reverse, however, is also true. Business owners who appreciate and care for their workers will see big rewards in many areas of their business, including:

• Customer satisfaction
• Productivity
• Retention rates

No matter how many employees you have, their happiness is imperative to the success of your business, and the results can be seen firsthand by your customers.

Steering Toward Better Customer Satisfaction

If there’s one place that many of us have seen the negative impacts of low employee morale, it’s at the DMV. When I recently had to visit my own local DMV to get my Real ID to fly without a passport, I soon realized that I wasn’t the only one who had to complete this task. The center was packed, everyone inside was impatient and miserable, and I had braced myself for the employees to be feeling the same as the customers were.

Instead, I was helped by an employee who was pleasant, had a smile on his face, and treated me like a person. After he had helped me and I awaited the next step in the process, I watched him greet every other person the same way. Soon enough, the customers’ demeanor changed, and a two-hour experience that could have been miserable became significantly more pleasant. The employee who helped me at the counter was equally kind and cheerful, and I had to ask, “Why are you guys so happy around here?” The response was simple: their management team treated them well.

My experience at the DMV impressed upon me the necessity of treating our employees well, having seen how it impacted not only the workers, but also the customers. If a trip to the DMV could be a positive experience thanks to happy employees, surely any business can achieve the same.

Keeping the Motor Running

The old saying that “Money can’t buy happiness” also applies to business owners and their employees. A great salary and an end-of-the-year bonus will certainly entice employees to start or continue working for you, but big paychecks alone won’t keep them happy if they don’t feel appreciated and valued. Your employees deserve to be treated as people in your company, not objects that can be bought with the right amount of money.

The chain reaction that comes with content employees will be felt throughout your business. Improved customer service in a client-facing role can make customer satisfaction skyrocket. Even in a more behind-the-scenes role, high employee morale can lead to permanent increases in productivity and decreased absenteeism. And of course, employees who already feel valued aren’t likely to leave your business for a competitor who will treat them the way they deserve. All of this can lead to increased profits for your company, and more importantly, it will lead to your employees leading happier, more fulfilling lives.

A Benefits Plan That Fuels Your Workforce

While there are many ways to show your employees how much you appreciate their hard work, one of the most efficient ways you can do so is by building a benefits plan that makes them the priority. Many business owners cut corners on their plan in the name of cost-saving, and while this approach may seem to help their bottom line on the surface, it can cause deep resentment (and poor health) among employees.

Instead, work with your adviser on making your plan more employee-centric. Ask questions such as:

• Does my plan save my employees money?
• Does my plan adequately cover my employees’ health needs?
• Is my plan easily accessible?
• Do my employees understand their plan and how to use it?

A plan that delivers a resounding “yes” to each of those questions can go a long way in communicating to your workers that you care for them and value their place in your company.

On The Road to Happier Employees

Your employees spend a significant portion of their lives with you, and the least you can provide in return for their hard work is an environment that makes them feel proud to work for your business. By remembering that your employees are your greatest assets and treating them as such, you can help both your individual workers and your business as a whole, and reexamining your benefits plan is a great place to start.

Contact us today to learn more about how your benefits plan can help you thank your employees for all their hard work.

When employers talk about benefits programs, the major category that tends to come up is healthcare. Many business owners believe that an all-encompassing healthcare plan can be the key to winning over both new and current employees. The reality, however, is that many outwardly impressive healthcare plans are expensive and even unnecessary, costing you tens of thousands of dollars that could be better spent elsewhere in your company.

A solution that many benefits brokers ignore is to offer your company’s benefits as a customizable option instead of a pre-decided bundle for your employees. This approach can not only improve employee satisfaction with their plan, but also prevent you from wasting valuable funds on benefits your workers don’t even need.

The Problem with Redundant Benefits

There’s a good reason why healthcare is so often at the forefront of people’s minds when they think about benefits. Medical procedures are expensive, and, yes, a solid healthcare plan may be the deciding factor between whether a valuable employee chooses to work for you or go with a competitor instead.

At the same time, though, many employees would choose not to have a healthcare plan if offered one. Reasons for this may include:

• Their spouse already has a great healthcare plan that covers them as well.
• They don’t incur enough medical expenses throughout the year to even meet their deductible.
• They already have healthcare benefits they pay for themselves.

If medical benefits are redundant to one of your employees, they offer little to no value in retaining that worker. Other benefits, however, may have a greater impact on their happiness and decision to stay or go.

The Power of Choice

Imagine how much disability insurance would mean to an employee with a high-risk job. Think of the relief a great life insurance plan would provide to a worker with a growing family at home. While not every worker needs medical benefits, they may need other benefits to live as happily and securely as possible.

Providing customized benefits options can give your employees just that at a fraction of the cost. Many employers fear not being able to afford medical benefits for every worker, and offering your employees the option to choose which benefits they’d prefer can help put them in control of their plan while also saving you thousands. An employee who already gets medical benefits through their spouse’s job can opt to have great dental and life insurance instead, for example. Providing an option like this demonstrates that you care about your employees as individuals rather than throwing a blanket plan over them all, and in the process, your company’s benefits costs become far more affordable for you.

A Benefits Gift Card
One of the keys to making your plan affordable, effective, and easy is by treating it like a gift card. Each employee gets a set amount of money to spend on benefits, and they can “shop” for the ones they want to receive. If they want additional benefits beyond what the limit affords them, they’re welcome to get them, but at their own expense. And, of course, if they choose not to use their allotted funds on benefits, they don’t receive the remaining amount as cash – the money is to be used strictly for its intended purpose.

This approach puts both you and your employees in control of benefits spending. You don’t have to worry about spending more than you planned on benefits, and your employees can spend as much or as little on benefits as they desire to create a plan that serves them perfectly.

You Can Afford to Pick and Choose

In the quest for a benefits plan that is both affordable and satisfying to employees, customization can be the best option for you and your workers. The potential redundancy in medical benefits can make them unnecessary for some employees who might prefer other benefits instead, and crafting a plan that caters to their needs within a predetermined limit can provide a cost-effective plan for everyone involved.

Contact us today to learn more about how a customized benefits plan can be the most affordable option for your business.

2019 was a year of change, and one of the largest changes my own business underwent was the shift from being known as The Benefits Group to rebranding as Dynamic Benefit Solutions. The difference between the two entities isn’t in name only – we’ve doubled down on our efforts to be the change we want to see in the benefits industry. Our mission, however, remains the same, and we strive to continue to build benefits plans that improves employees’ healthcare quality while creating savings from the ground up.

Here are some of the core components of what we believe a benefits plan should be:

A Custom-Made Plan

Many modern benefits plans are designed in a way that helps everyone but employers and employees. Brokers push one-size-fits-all plans onto employers and encourage them to renew each year, even though the plan may not be a good fit for the company. While many business owners value their brokers and all the hard work they’ve done over the years, most brokers only meet with employers when it’s time to renew their benefits plan. Even if they’ve been working with the company for a decade, they likely haven’t spent enough time getting to know your business to develop a plan that best suits its needs.

Your broker doesn’t have to build your plan alone, though. A benefits adviser can work with your business throughout the year, getting to know its strengths and challenges as it evolves. They can then serve as your new broker or work with your existing broker to deliver a plan that is perfectly suited for your business. This approach can save you money and provide better care for your employees, and you don’t have to say goodbye to your broker to achieve your desired results.

Making People The Priority

Your employees power your business, and they deserve a benefits plan that reflects that. Many modern benefits plans try to help companies save money at the employees’ expense, but these plans often backfire, decreasing recruiting and retention rates and lowering employee morale. A truly valuable plan will put your employees first by providing:

• Accessible, high-quality healthcare
• Affordable plans with opportunities to create additional savings
• Education to utilize the tools in their plan and make informed choices about their healthcare

My mission has always been to provide high-quality, low-cost healthcare to employees, and we reject the notion that the best way for business owners to save on benefits plans is to shift costs to their workers. By developing plans that create savings from the inside out, we hope to contribute to a change in the benefits industry that positively impacts everyone in your company.

The Power Of Teamwork

One person alone can’t create a massive shift in the way your benefits plan affects your business. Just as your plan should be comprised of a variety of tools and strategies that work together to create savings, you and your employees won’t achieve the results you desire if you rely on your broker to do all the work in developing your plan.

By acting as a consultant, your adviser can meet with your broker to help them build a plan that best suits your business. Additionally, however, your adviser should also meet with you and your employees to help everyone impacted by your benefits plan as they learn how to use the tools provided to them. In time, your plan will cease to be just another annual expense and transform into a living machine that produces both savings and great healthcare.

A Commitment To Next-Generation Healthcare

We know that one group of passionate advisers isn’t going to single-handedly fix our nation’s healthcare system. But by building plans that are tailored to business’ individual needs, put employees first, and utilize everyone’s strengths to maximize its impact, we strive to change the benefits world one business at a time.

Contact us today to learn more about how Dynamic Benefit Solutions can make your benefits plan do more for you.

A great benefits plan can significantly decrease in value if your employees continue to choose low-quality, high-cost options when seeking out healthcare. From choosing a primary care physician to searching for a surgeon for a risky operation, many people feel alone as they make big decisions about their wellbeing.

This doesn’t have to be the case for your employees, however. Healthcare advocates are trained to make the care process easier for patients, and including their services in your benefits plan can ease your employees’ concerns while giving them access to a level of care they may never have thought to seek out on their own.

Here’s why an advocate can add value to your business’ benefits plan:

An Expert in Healthcare Navigation

If a tree fell on your house, you probably wouldn’t call a roofer first. Instead, you’d contact an insurance agent who could help ensure that the repairs are covered under your plan, affordable, and done right. What happens, though, if someone needs knee surgery? For most people, the answer is to visit an in-network physician. From there, it’s their job to navigate the healthcare system and somehow find the most reliable care at the lowest cost – something that many patients either can’t or won’t bother to do.

An advocate can help patients navigate the healthcare system, taking a significant amount of stress out of a process that is difficult by default. By including advocate services in your benefits plan, you’re enabling your employees to rest easier knowing that a professional in the field will be seeking out the best quality care at the lowest cost. Your employees can then stop worrying about where and how they’ll get treated and focus on their recovery.

Rejecting the Default Option

The modern healthcare system has taught society many habits that are difficult to break. For example, many people still get MRIs done at the hospital – a decision that can cost them around $3,200 out of pocket if their deductible is $5,000. An advocate explores the possibilities beyond what a patient might choose as their default treatment options, offering alternatives such as:

• Specialized care – An outpatient center or specialist could provide the same MRI for just $500.
• Alternative locations – Traveling an additional hour to a less expensive provider can potentially slash costs in half.
• Better quality providers – Do your employees know if their doctor was at the top of bottom of their class?  An advocate will help direct patients to the care they deserve.

Searching for optimal care options is what advocates do, and the result can be massive savings and optimal care quality for your valued employees.

A Tool That Helps Everyone

Advocates don’t just help employees get the most out of their benefits – they themselves are a benefit. Better yet, your adviser can help build a plan for your business that enables your employees to get the most out of an advocate’s services. In a fully funded plan, for example, 60,000 employees may have just one advocate to share between them. But a high-quality self-funded plan may be able to provide one advocate per 5,000 employees.

The extent to which an advocate can create savings can mean that your business can save tens of thousands of dollars every year. If your employee needs shoulder surgery and an advocate can find them an outpatient center that can perform the procedure at half the cost of the local hospital, the $15,000 saved can easily justify you paying the employee’s deductible in exchange for them using the advocate’s services. Including an advocate in your company’s benefits plan isn’t just a perk; it’s a tool that positively impacts everyone involved, from the employees to the company as a whole.

Your Benefits Co-Pilot

The healthcare industry is complicated, and no one should feel like they have to navigate it alone. An advocate can act as a guiding force for your employees, helping them through the confusing and difficult steps required to get the best quality care at the lowest cost. By looking beyond the default healthcare choices many patients make, they can lead your employees to providers and treatment that can save them and you thousands of dollars, making your workplace happier and healthier.

Contact us today to learn more about how an advocate can add value to your benefits plan.

The calendar for a typical benefits plan is usually pretty unremarkable: your broker meets with you at the end of the year to discuss your renewal, at which point you can have a discussion about changes that should be made in your benefits plan. Then, you sign off on your plan for another year and don’t speak with your broker until it’s time to renew once again.

This practice has been the industry standard for years, but with a great benefits adviser, your business can depart from the status quo and, in the process, build a benefits plan that functions at your speed. By forgetting the notion that all changes to your plan have to be made at the end of the year, you and your adviser can construct a plan that evolves with your business while alleviating a source of unnecessary stress for you.

Here’s why you shouldn’t feel pressured to make all the changes to your benefits plan at a specific time of the year:

Removal of the Rush

Your benefits plan is one of your largest business expenses, and it deserves to be treated as such. Just as you wouldn’t hurry into buying a house or a car without carefully considering all your options, your plan should be thoroughly analyzed before you simply accept proposed changes to it at the end of the year.

If you feel pressured to change your benefits plan simply because your renewal is approaching, consider holding off until you feel ready to make the changes your adviser believes your plan needs. You can make changes to your plan at any time during the year, and there’s no reason to force them all to happen at one time if your business isn’t ready for them yet.

Timing That Works for You

A great benefits plan isn’t one-size-fits-all. Your adviser should be working to create a plan that’s uniquely tailored to your company’s needs, and that includes making changes when your business needs them. Making changes at the end of the year is typical for brokers who follow the traditional standards that say that the same plan can work for numerous vastly different businesses, but the truth is that you can change parts of your plan at any point during the year.

Your adviser should be working with you year-round to monitor how your business evolves. As they get to know your company and how it’s growing, they’ll be able to give you recommendations on what changes to make and when. This personalized advice can help you alter your plan the right way, avoiding risky changes being made too soon or necessary changes being made too late.

A Holiday Tradition You Can Forget

The holidays are a stressful enough time for business owners (and their employees). In addition to dealing with all of the end-of-the-year challenges for your company – one of which is your plan renewal itself – you may also be focused on staff holiday parties, employees getting eager about time off, and your own personal holiday preparations outside of the workplace. The end of the year is a busy, but exciting time, and feeling like you need to add benefits plan changes to your already packed schedule may just add unnecessary weight to your shoulders.

By avoiding the holiday business bustle, you can save your plan changes for a time before or after one of the most stressful periods of the year. Don’t feel pressured to make big decisions about your plan during a time when you should be looking forward to seeing your family and celebrating the emergence of a new year. If the tradition of end-of-the-year changes isn’t for you, you have another eleven months to make big decisions about your plan.

The Right Time for the Right Plan

Whether you feel that waiting to make changes or avoiding the wait is right for your plan, you should never feel pressured into changing your plan at a certain time of the year just because it’s how it’s always been done in the benefits industry. In fact, more customized timing can remove additional stress from the holiday season while helping you build a plan that works better for your business specifically. Like many other aspects of traditional benefits plans, the status quo for changing up a company’s plan isn’t always the best strategy, and your adviser can help you make changes when you need them the most.

Contact me today to learn more about how making changes at the right time can help your benefits plan do more for your business.

If you’ve been frustrated with the quality and cost of your current benefits plan, you may have considered working with a benefits adviser. What gives many business owners pause, however, is the idea that they’d have to terminate their relationship with their broker in order to bring an adviser onto the team. Abandoning the idea of the adviser in favor of the theoretically “safer” option of sticking with a broker may seem like the best solution in the face of uncertainty, but avoiding any kind of change altogether could keep your benefits plan permanently subpar.

Here’s why taking a risk by working with an adviser and your broker can pay off for your plan:

Same Solutions, Same Problems

Despite the fact that healthcare costs continue to go up while healthcare quality continues to go down, many employers are still willing to stick with the same broker and benefits plan year after year. In fact, Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ Health Research Institute (HRI) is anticipating a greater cost increase than ever before for 2020 at 6 percent.

These cost increases have become so commonplace in the industry that many business owners believe that the best thing they can do is ask their broker to get them the lowest possible cost increase when the time comes to renew their plan. Even though there are other options available to them, the fear of change (and losing their broker) keeps them stuck in the same benefits rut, paying more while receiving less.

Avoiding Broker Breakups

Particularly when one broker has been working with the company for years, searching for a new adviser can feel like a form of betrayal. There are ways, however, to shake up your benefits plan for the better without severing your relationship with your broker.

Your benefits adviser can work with your broker as a consultant, finding the right people to turn your plan into a strategic advantage for your business. In this case, your adviser doesn’t need to take on the job of your broker, but instead connects the appropriate healthcare industry experts to get your employees the best care at the lowest cost. Much like the conductor in a symphony, your adviser brings all of the individual players in your plan together to create something that both you and your employees can enjoy. Some employers later decide to have their adviser adopt their broker’s role in their plan anyway, but by taking your adviser on as a benefits consultant, you take more control over your broker’s involvement in your plan.

Fixing Problems From The Outside In

Some employers believe that using their benefits adviser as a consultant is a redundant use of their time. After all, your adviser should be well educated on all of the factors that comprise your benefits plan, and bringing in outside experts might seem unnecessary at first.

Beneath the surface, though, this strategy makes perfect sense when it comes to ensuring that your employees are getting the best quality care for the best possible price. In fact, many businesses already bring in outside experts to help with situations within their business. Maybe your company has an in-house legal team, but there may be certain situations in which you need an outside legal team as well. Similarly, your adviser may want to dig beyond their existing knowledge of certain aspects of your benefits plan, and by working as a consultant, they can incorporate the wisdom and experience of outside experts to maximize the impact of your plan.

The Power of Change

Although loyalty is important when cultivating relationships within your business, the solution to your benefits challenges won’t likely be found by doing the same thing with the same people over and over again. By working with a benefits adviser as a consultant, though, you can open up a new realm of possibilities for your plan. From there, the decision to move on from your broker or find new ways for them to build up your business is up to you.

Contact me today to learn more about working with a benefits adviser can be just the right amount of change to help your plan reach its full potential.

When many business owners look at how much they spend on benefits, the costs seem so astronomical that creating significant savings can seem impossible. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimated last year that employers would spend an average of $14,800 per employee in 2019, and given how healthcare costs have steadily risen over recent years, this number isn’t likely to decrease any time soon.

A great adviser can help you find savings throughout your benefits plan, and even changes that seem small on the surface can lead to thousands of dollars in savings that can lead to opportunities for growth within your business and increased employee satisfaction. Recently, one of my clients experienced this for themselves when they switched to a self-funding plan and saved big on just one employee’s prescription.

A $44,000 Decision

The high cost of prescription drugs is no secret. We targeted this as we examined how to help our aforementioned client save on their benefits plan, and we were able to source one arthritis medication (Humira) for one of their employees. This drug retails for $60,000, but we were able to reduce the cost to the employer to just $16,000, saving them $44,000 or nearly 75 percent of the original cost.

These savings also extended to the employee in question. The worker was originally going to have to pay a $150 copay, but we were able to eliminate the copay entirely. For one employee on a retail salary, saving nearly $40 a week on medication can make a huge difference.

This single instance saved both the employer and employee a large amount of money, and now, both of them can apply those savings to their own goals.

Improved Employee Satisfaction

An extra $150 a month in savings can significantly improve a person’s life, and the employer in this story now has the privilege of delivering that good news to their worker. Imagine what that employee could do with $1,800 a year in savings: pay off bills or debt, buy more gifts for their kids at Christmas, even save up for a well-deserved vacation over a couple years.

The positivity that results from this level of savings can also have a positive impact on the company by:

• Reducing turnover rates – This employee is far less likely to search for another job when they know that their current employer can essentially offer them $1,800 more per year.
• Boosting employee morale – An employee who feels like their employer is looking out for them is far more likely to be positive and productive at work.
• Attracting better talent – Offering evidence like this to other potential hires provides them with a huge reason to work for you instead of your competitors.

Businesses that look out for their employees’ best interests have far more success in keeping and attracting the kind of talent that helps the company grow.

The Opportunity for Investment

The tens of thousands of dollars the employers saved in this case can now be implemented as a strategic tool for their business. As a retail company, $44,000 can fund the salaries of one or two new hires. They can also put the money toward rewarding their employees through raises or bonuses. Investing in their employees can, again, have a positive impact on their recruiting and retention rates, potentially saving them even more money through reduced hiring and training costs.

Your adviser can work with the leaders in your business to uncover these opportunities for growth and savings. By finding even “small” ways to reduce expenses and stretch your dollars, they can prevent unnecessary benefits spending and help you turn your savings into opportunities for your business to evolve.

Simple Changes for a Huge Impact

Sourcing just one prescription drug for just one employee may not seem like it could offer a lot to a business, but our client’s experience proves that the opposite is true. By placing their trust in us, this employer saved tens of thousands of dollars while creating a better work experience for their employee. Now, both of them can use their savings for improvement and growth wherever they see fit.

Contact me today to learn more about how a great adviser can help you create positive changes that have a lasting impact on your business and the employees that help it succeed.