Your employees are your most valuable asset, so you want them to be happy and healthy. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of healthcare, many employees struggle to understand their benefits options. If they become discouraged, they could put off necessary medical care.
It’s essential to implement strategies and tools to guide your workers toward the highest value healthcare. Let’s explore some of the best practices you can utilize to help your workers make better decisions.
Best Practices for Guiding Employees to the Highest Value Healthcare
Workers value their healthcare benefits, but they often struggle to understand the benefits available to them. Approximately 85 percent of employees don’t understand their coverage options, leading to uninformed healthcare decisions that could cause them to overpay for healthcare.
How can you help? Educate your employees on their various medical benefits options and show them how to find the best healthcare for their needs. The truth is, that’s exactly what employees want.
When employers communicate clearly and often with them, seek their input, and tailor educational messages about their benefits, employees become engaged and excited to learn how to make informed healthcare choices.
Provide a Support Team
Offering employees access to a support system can help them navigate the complex world of healthcare and reduce the risk of making poor choices that could result in increased costs and poor outcomes.
A support system is a program that offers personalized assistance to members. For example, Bluebook CareConnect™ provides a member concierge to help members find the highest quality and most cost-effective care for complex procedures. The concierge walks members through identifying high-value providers near them, scheduling appointments, and transferring medical records. They also stay connected to the member throughout their entire care journey to ensure a positive outcome and patient experience.
Consider that prices for the same procedure, even within the same facility, can vary by as much as 1,000 percent. Members may not realize the drastic differences in cost, which makes it difficult to find the true cost of their medical services. For complex or high cost procedures, a member concierge can play a critical role in a patient’s healthcare journey, ensuring your employees receive the best care for their needs without overpaying for services.
Help Employees Understand Their Healthcare Options
Since the healthcare maze is complex and can be confusing, workers may make incorrect assumptions about their benefits or not know what their benefits entail. On top of this, many employees may choose the same benefits and coverage levels every year without exploring new or updated plans that may better fit their needs.
Frequent communications and interactive tools that educate employees about their benefits and provide details of new and updated plans, empower employees to make more informed decisions.
Before scheduling care, members should refer to their specific benefits plan to see if a provider is in-network. This can make a huge difference in insurance payouts and out-of-pocket costs. If employees have access to a navigation solution like Bluebook, they can easily find high-quality, Fair Price providers or ask for assistance.
Empower Employees Through Engagement Rewards
Healthcare isn’t one size fits all. Each person has their own unique medical journey with varying needs and concerns. To meet workers’ needs, employers must provide meaningful benefits that employees understand and are empowered to use.
When employees are engaged with their healthcare decisions and empowered with a suite of healthcare tools, they’re more motivated to make healthy decisions. Engagement rewards are a powerful motivator that can encourage employees to take advantage of their benefits.
When they choose a high-value provider, they receive incentives in a variety of ways, such as health savings account (HSA) contributions or wellness points, motivating them to choose high-value providers every time they need medical care.
The Value of Informed Decision-Making
When your employees make more informed healthcare decisions, you’ll reap the benefits of smart shopping:
Reduced Healthcare Costs
Many workers don’t realize they can shop around for healthcare services, so they may choose expensive care because they don’t know other options are available. They also may not know how the cost of their healthcare choices affects their employer. When employees understand the impact and are equipped with a suite of quality and price transparency tools and guidance from a support system,they can make more informed decisions and find the best care for their needs at a lower price.
Decreased Health-Related Stress
Health concerns impact every facet of a person’s life, including their engagement with work. If your employees have access to solutions that help them make more informed healthcare decisions and navigate the complex healthcare system, they will have peace of mind and stay more engaged with their work and available benefits.
How Can You Guide Employees to the Highest Value Healthcare?
Are you ready to streamline your healthcare benefits and help your employees select the best care for their needs? Download our infographic to learn how to help your employees make the best healthcare decisions.
