Providing health benefits can help businesses reduce employee turnover and improve employee satisfaction and overall happiness while also improving their health and wellness. The thing is, such products are expensive, and they have been getting increasingly so in the last few years. To keep costs low, some employers have cut benefits. However, there are ways to keep healthcare costs down while ensuring the health and wellness of a business’s employees.
Research Every Plan Choice
The cheapest plan might seem like the best way to reduce healthcare costs, but it is not. Cheaper plans usually translate to employees not getting the care they need, where and when they need it. The organization is then left to deal with the cost of loss of productivity as well as employee turnover.
Rather than shopping with price in mind, shop for value. How you gauge value will depend on your employees and their demographics, but ensure you get a plan that provides all the benefits you need while balancing that with cost.
Evaluating employee needs, considering the total cost of care, and seeing if you can integrate all healthcare costs into one plan can all help you save money.
Sign Up for OTC Programs
OTC programs provide supplemental benefits that make it easier for employees to shop for different health products instead of turning to more costly alternatives. These programs offer flexible benefits for your employees, who get access via phone, mail order, online, in-store, and through OTC cards provided by their employers.
Using these programs benefits employees because they get access to the healthcare products they need conveniently, which has the added benefit of improving their health and wellness. These programs have very high retention rates which means they can decrease the acquisition costs as a new employee joins the program.
The best OTC supplemental benefits programs also lower healthcare costs by recapturing any funds that are unspent while also allowing employees to access cheaper healthcare products and services. They also save businesses the loss of productivity that comes with employees taking sick days off as they encourage healthier habits among employees while giving them easier access to what they need to remain healthy.
Promote a Healthy Culture
If you offer health plans during the onboarding process, employees will choose a plan based on their anticipated healthcare needs. If they anticipate they will be healthy, they will choose a more affordable option. This means that it is in the business’s best interests regarding their bottom line to ensure their employees are healthy.
Start by letting employees know that their plan covers preventive healthcare. Next, encourage behaviors like taking breaks and reducing exposure to harmful substances.
Do a Cost Audit
Another way to keep costs low is by doing a cost audit. This involves seeing what you are spending money on that your employees are not taking advantage of. Once you do this, provide personalized healthcare plans to ensure all employees only get what they need to keep costs low.
Healthcare plans are crucial for both employers and employees but saving should not compromise their quality and the experiences your employees get. This is more so in the case of cutting benefits, which a business should should not do because it risks incurring costs elsewhere when it does this.
Bio: James Daniels is a freelance writer, business enthusiast, a bit of a tech buff, and an overall geek. He is also an avid reader, who can while away hours reading and knowing about the latest gadgets and tech, whilst offering views and opinions on these topics.
