How the Great Resignation Affects Employee Health Plans

Highlights  

• The Great Resignation is causing shifts in employee benefits needs and expectations.

• Employers looking to attract and retain top talent must create employee benefits packages that go above and beyond the norm.

• Employees want packages that offer flexible benefits, lower health insurance costs, and cultivate a culture of respect within the workplace.

• A self-funded health insurance plan with Roundstone’s group captive can help you create a customized benefits plan to meet your employee needs.

With droves of employees retiring or leaving during the Great Resignation, employers must focus on creating well-rounded employee benefits plans to keep top talent. Most employees are looking for employee healthcare benefits that offer flexible perks, create a respectful workplace, and cut out-of-pocket costs for medical care. How can employers find a solution for employee benefits that meets these shifting needs?

Self-funded health insurance is one option. It offers savings, cost control, and customization to better meet the needs of your employees. By self-insuring, you can afford better benefits, which goes along way toward improving employee retention and attracting top talent.

How Will Employer Health Plans Adapt to Future Trends?

As of 2022, the Great Resignation has seen 47.8 million workers quit the workforce. Multiple factors brought about the Great Resignation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic when 14.7% of workers quit in April 2020. Although the resignation rate has slowed, it remained at 3.8% as of February 2022. Today, the labor market is starting to loosen up as the Fed raises interest rates to curb inflation, but the competition for top talent is still hot.

The resignation of workers was partly due to a shift in workplace culture in which employees expect more flexibility and choice. This applies to benefits packages as well as workstyles.  As a result, many workers are no longer satisfied with basic healthcare benefits, which are becoming increasingly expensive without a perceivable difference in quality of care.

Workers are also looking for value-added benefits such as digital or telehealth access to mental health providers, dependent and eldercare benefits, and a workplace culture that integrates core values of well being into the employee benefits plan.

It is important to keep in mind that providing a healthy benefits package demonstrates to employees (current and future) that you as an employer care about them as people and want them to be able to access care. The benefits to a happy, healthy workforce are many, including reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, and greater employee retention. Doing something to help employees is more seen and appreciated than you may think. Self-funded insurance offers an affordable way to provide attractive, quality benefits that can improve employee retention rates.

What to Focus on When Considering Your Employee Benefits Package Under a Self-Funded Insurance Plan

According to McKinsey & Company, “Workers are hungry for trust, social cohesion, and purpose.” Reimagining the employee experience has now taken center stage in most HR departments. This cultural mandate, combined with shifts regarding employee benefits due to COVID-19 and behavioral health coverage trends means that employers must refocus when creating benefits packages that meet their employees’ needs. The beauty of a self-insured plan is it can be easily customized to meet your employees’ unique needs and provide higher-quality care.

Collaborative, Respectful Environment

The Great Resignation happened partly due to outdated policies and company cultures that don’t value the employee. In this new environment, employers must cultivate a collaborative, respectful relationship with their employees. This mindset applies to choosing employee benefit plan elements as well.

For example, look for a self-funded insurance plan that allows you to address employee concerns with direct, customized benefits, such as covering mental health treatments and allowing telehealth access. Make it simple and easy for employees to navigate their health plan, from a stellar on-boarding experience through ongoing plan utilization.

Keep the communications flowing and encourage a variety of wellness and engagement activities above and beyond the plan document. All should work together as core pillars of your employee experience and wellness strategy.

Flexibility Regarding Treatments and Providers in a Self-Funded Insurance Plan

Under a fully insured plan, your employees are limited to plan designs chosen by the insurance company. This often limits covered treatments and restricts who they can receive care from. Opt for a self-insured plan that lets you choose the providers who are best for your region and your employees, whether they operate in private practices or Centers of Excellence.

Guiding employees to the highest quality provider generally results in better outcomes and ultimate cost. When you chase quality, you find value. This is one way you can provide higher quality benefits at a more affordable rate under a self-funded health insurance plan.

Rewarding Good Behavior

A best in class employee benefits package includes incentives for plan efficient utilization from both an employer and employee perspective.

For example, you can motivate your employees with a self-funded health plan by offering low copays for using telehealth or zero deductibles for choosing a primary care as opposed to urgent care or even emergency room visits when it is routine non-emergency care.

Another way to incentivize employees is to offer small discounts for doing things that add to their overall health, like quarterly biometric scanning or participation in a well-being program.

Access to Well-Being Programs

Mental and physical health are a top concerns for most people in the workforce, so a well-crafted self-funded employee benefits plan will offer a well-being plan. Well-being plans can save you money and result in happier, healthier employees who perform better at work.

Roundstone allows you to include well-being programs and plan incentives into your self-insured benefits. As part of your well-being program, you can offer resources for managing mental health, specifically for substance use cessation or dealing with anxiety or depression.

You can incentivize your employees to use these benefits with low copays and zero deductibles. You can also encourage participation through contests, gift cards, and other rewards, such as additional paid time off (PTO).

Ensure your well-being plan provides fundamental education on nutrition, weight loss, and substance use cessation. For example, we had a great session with a nutrition expert from Paragon Fitness for Roundstone employees last week:

Nutrition expert Kristen Soinski from Paragon Fitness helps us Roundstonians feel good, not guilty, about our relationship with food as we approach the holiday season.

Pro Tip: Well-being programs should meet your employees where they are (on their phones), so look for programs that have virtual and mobile app elements to boost engagement.

Technological Tools and Insights in a Self-Funded Insurance Plan

Technology and digital tools are important to most employers and employees. Look for an employee benefits provider that offers digital tools, such as analytical dashboards, that allow you to see how your claims affect your spending. Also, choose a provider with excellent customer service, supported by multi-modal technologies like emails, chats, and digital platforms.

With Roundstone’s self-funded insurance, you get access to specialized digital tools that help you understand where you spend your money. Our CSI Dashboard offers easily readable claims data that gives you a real-time look at your healthcare expenses from dollar one, allowing you to see trends in spending and make changes whenever necessary to save money and provide better coverage.

Customized Self-Insured Coverage to Meet Individual Needs

Although many companies pay a fixed cost to be fully insured through big-name insurance carriers, the result is a one-size fits all plan that may work okay for everyone but fall short of being flexible enough for the demands of today’s changed workforce.

If you want to build customized coverage into your plan to attract high-performing employees, you may need to switch to a self-insured plan that lets you select customized coverage that meets your workforce’s needs.

This may mean choosing a self-funded plan that gives you access to great pharmacy benefits, concierge services, care coordination teams, employee assistance programs (EAP), or direct primary care programs. Programs like these can help make care more accessible to your employees and can save you a ton on the price of prescription drugs and other services.

More Benefits, Less Cost in a Self-Funded Insurance Plan

Offering increased employee benefits comes at a cost. However, with a group captive plan from Roundstone, you can easily offer improved benefits while saving money year over year.

With Roundstone, you can design your self-funded plan however you want, whenever you want. You can connect with your members throughout the year to determine how they feel about the benefits you offer and whether you’re meeting their needs.

You can change your self-insured plan anytime, not just at enrollment, which means you can implement changes in real time, making your employees feel respected and included in your plan design. The ability to react quickly to a high-cost drug or procedure can help you save big in the long run.

The rising cost of healthcare is causing most fully insured plan members and businesses to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses for medical care, such as high deductibles and copays.

With Roundstone’s self-insured solution, you can lower expenses for your company and employees by designing your plan to cut costs your own way. You can elect zero deductibles, low co-pays, and providers who offer lower costs and better care to reduce your plan expenses.

Offer More Employee Benefits at a Lower Cost With Self-Insured Group Captive Insurance From Roundstone

To retain your employees and attract new talent, you must offer flexible, customized employee benefits. Discover how a self-funded group captive plan from Roundstone can help you meet this challenge and improve healthcare for everyone on your team.

Request a proposal from the Roundstone team today to learn more about how you can offer better benefits at less cost to attract and retain top talent through a self-funded insurance plan.