Highlights
- Healthcare concierge services help employees connect with in-network providers and navigate their benefits.
- Healthcare concierge services reduce barriers to healthcare and boost employee satisfaction, and can be especially effective in self-insured plans.
- Self-insured employers save on healthcare costs with concierge care that helps plan members identify high-quality, low-cost providers and get necessary medical care.
Self-funded health insurance plans allow companies and employees to take advantage of healthcare concierge services. With these services, employees have access to care teams that guide them toward quality in-network providers, education about employee benefits, and a user-friendly, all-in-one platform for accessing benefits information.
Self-insured businesses that encourage their employees to use healthcare concierge services can reduce healthcare costs while improving accessibility and quality of care. Good concierge services, like Rightway Health, save time and money for employers and self-funded plan members alike.
What Are Healthcare Concierge Services?
Healthcare concierge services are an affordable add-on service for self-funded healthcare plans that help employees navigate their employer health benefits. For example, if an employee needs a new primary care provider, the concierge service can direct them to a high-quality, in-network option.
Healthcare concierge services are sometimes called “member navigation services” or “healthcare navigation services.” They help self-insured plan members become better healthcare consumers and make informed health decisions. High-quality concierge services have multiple touchpoints so that plan members can access their healthcare concierge team in whatever mode is most convenient to that particular member. Modes include the concierge service’s app, website, email, and phone.
Your healthcare concierge service should help guide plan members to make good healthcare decisions.
How Implementing Healthcare Concierge Services Benefits Self-Funded Employers and Employees
Both employers and employees benefit from using a good concierge service. Employees and other plan members benefit from less stress in navigating benefits, saved time, and even improved health outcomes.
Self-insured employers can benefit in a number of ways. Easing member experience with a concierge service makes care more accessible, so members are more likely to pursue preventative care. The concierge service also takes some of the burden off HR by answering member benefit questions.
Improve Employee Health
When you implement healthcare concierge services as part of your self-funded health insurance plan, you make it easier for your employees to find high-quality care. Many employees don’t engage with their benefits plan due to confusion over what’s covered or how to find a provider for their specific needs. Preventative care is crucial to improving member outcomes. Good navigation services connect members to the right care at the right time.
Roundstone’s CSI team often recommends Rightway Health. Rightway is a navigation service with enhanced cost and quality metrics that guides members to the best in-network care available.
Rightway differentiates itself from other concierge services by including clinical expertise in its service. Each Rightway care navigation team has clinicians who can assess member inquiries and redirect care if necessary. For example, if a member inquires about in-network orthopedic surgeons, Rightway’s care team will assess the situation and may recommend the member pursue physical therapy before surgery.
Guiding members away from unnecessary care can improve health outcomes for your members and your bottom line — not to mention happier, healthier, more engaged employees.
Concierge Services Are Your Front Door to Additional Benefits in a Self-Funded Plan
A high-quality navigation service will guide plan members to additional services that you want your plan members to use. If you have implemented telehealth services, for example, your concierge service will guide members to use that service when applicable.
Take musculoskeletal health as another example. If you implement a digital physical therapy program like Sword Health, your concierge service’s care team will guide your members to that service. Rightway even links to ancillary services in its app.
For self-insured employers, interventions like this can boost business performance, cost-effectiveness, and productivity.
Concierge Services Enhance Access to Benefits Education
Benefits specialists from healthcare concierge services can help educate your plan members on their coverage and even wellness incentives and challenges. A good concierge service provides a digital platform where you can link all benefits services in one central portal that is easily accessible to your employees.
With concierge services, your plan members can easily reach out to a healthcare concierge representative who can offer solutions that meet their needs. For example, if a new employee has moved from another state and needs specialized care, that member can text, email, or call the service to find a new provider.
Employer wellness plans are another great example. If you have an employee nutrition or well-being program, you can upload education materials, forms, and communications into the concierge app. If you offer specialized pharmacy benefits, some concierge services will allow your employees to upload their pharmacy cards to a virtual wallet for use when they pick up prescriptions.
Your concierge service can promote benefits to employees through app notifications, emails, and text messages to help spread awareness and encourage employees to take advantage of the incentives.
Better Health, Better Productivity
Healthcare concierge services can make accessing routine checkups and screenings easier for employees, helping them stay healthy. Providing employees with easier access to doctor appointments and care can improve productivity by reducing time away from work due to illness or doctor visits.
A 2020 study found that medical residents and fellows enrolled in a concierge scheduling service reported fewer barriers to primary care and increased access to healthcare services. With convenient access to healthcare concierge services, employees can focus on their work without worrying about their physical and mental health.
How Healthcare Concierge Services Reduce Costs
The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that family coverage premiums increased 43% over the previous ten years and 20% over the last five years. Employers may incur additional costs when employees can’t pay for necessary care due to increased deductibles and copays.
Employees skipping preventative care and other recommended treatments often experience higher costs when mild or moderate conditions worsen due to lack of treatment.
Implementing a healthcare concierge service can help reduce unnecessary expenses for employers by ensuring employees receive crucial preventative care. A good concierge service like Rightway also guides members to clinically appropriate care. This means the member avoids unnecessary ER visits or unnecessary tests that would also hit the employer’s plan. It also ensures that people who do need specialized care get it without delay.
While costs vary for healthcare concierge services, some services provide excellent guidance for just a few dollars per employee per month. The money you spend on implementing an excellent concierge service provider is well worth the investment, especially for Roundstone groups, who get preferred pricing.
Find Out More About How to Save in a Self-Insured Plan
Healthcare concierge services and self-funded insurance plans can help deliver quality experiences to employees while minimizing costs. With Roundstone Insurance, you can help your employees take control of their well-being with a data-driven, self-funded health insurance plan. We work with you to identify your employees’ unique needs and create a customized self-funded insurance plan that can include cost saving measures like healthcare concierge services.
Contact us to learn how self-funding can help your company save money with integrated concierge services as part of your benefits plan.
