Welcome back to our exploration of mental health in the workplace and its impact on employee health benefits. In part 1, we discussed the importance of providing a highly personalized benefits plan that serves the uniqueness of a workforce population. Now, let’s look into the implications of behavioral trends for employers and how they can create a supportive environment for their employees through enhancements to their company’s health plan.
What Behavioral Health Trends Mean for Employers
Shifting behavioral health trends will continue to impact employers and their employee health insurance plans. Employers must take a proactive stance to eliminate the stigma around using mental health benefits, prioritize employees’ well-being, and make sure employees understand they have options to mitigate negative outcomes through well-rounded employee health benefits with behavioral health insurance coverage.
To meet the needs highlighted by current behavioral health trends, employers should modify their coverages to address mental health insurance vs. out-of-pocket costs for counseling services, addiction treatment, and telehealth services. Expanding access to these services through an employee assistance program (EAP) should be a key component of employer benefit plans.
Employers should also consider offering services that use technology-assisted counseling and coaching and those that address the needs of marginalized communities.
Better Access to Mental Health Services in a Company Health Plan
When building your company’s insurance benefit plan, focus on elements that boost access to mental health services for all employees. Offering easily accessible maintenance and preventative mental health care, like telehealth and counseling services, can help all employees get early care and interventions for mental health crises.
Easily accessible mental health services can help prevent issues from worsening, leading to improved employees’ well-being and lower costs for treatments. This saves money and prioritizes the health and well-being of your employees.
In practice, increased access to behavioral health services can mean removing financial barriers by eliminating or reducing copays for preventative care and ongoing treatment.
Employee wellness programs can also include educational resources on what the plan covers, such as trauma-informed care, youth and family-centered counseling, and single-session interventions, and where to find services. This makes care easier to find and more affordable for all employees to use when they need it.
Telehealth Services
Virtual access to care is a key component of an accessible employer healthcare plan. In 2022, 38% of care was virtual. Even though usage has fallen somewhat since the pandemic, it remains high and can be a valuable asset in expanding employee accessibility to care.
Telehealth services have become an essential part of any employee health insurance plan, whether for primary care physicians or mental health professionals. Telehealth is more convenient for members, eliminating the need to make an in-person appointment, take time off work, drive to a facility, and sit in a waiting room to receive care.
Your employee benefits plan should cover telehealth visits with physical and mental health providers, with a focus on services that use technologies like DTx and AI-assisted diagnosis for well-rounded care. Offer these with a reduced copay over in-person sessions and subsidize the use of apps employees can use to boost mental health and at-home management.
Promotion of Employee Wellness Programs
Employee wellness programs provide resources (and incentives) to help members live healthier lifestyles. These programs encourage members to engage in behavior that can improve their physical health — like regular primary care visits and routine workouts. Providing members the resources to improve their physical well-being can have positive effects on their emotional and mental health, which can substantially reduce the cost of employee health insurance over time.
Thoughtful, well-rounded well-being plans promote employee retention and can improve physical health outcomes. They can also support behavioral health with education on issues like substance use, access to resources for those with language or cultural-specific needs, and encouragement for using well-being apps like Calm or MindShift CBT, which can help with stress management.
Self-Funded Health Benefits: Flexibility and Choice for Employers
For employers with 25 or more employees, self-funded health insurance in a group captive can be more affordable and more flexible than traditional (fully insured) health insurance plans.
Under a group stop-loss captive, a self-funded plan allows you the freedom to build your own personalized benefits plan — a plan tailored to your workforce — and can help you attract and retain talent. The group captive model allows mid-market and small businesses to share risk. Working with a trustworthy partner like Roundstone provides additional benefits, like a dedicated cost containment team, full access to data, and reimbursement for unspent premium.
To put it in simpler terms, self-insurance with a group medical captive allows you to enjoy the affordable benefits of self-funding with less risk and volatility. It’s a proven funding model for small to midsize employers who wish to self-insure and reduce the cost of their benefits with freedom and flexibility but don’t want to go it alone.
Custom Plan Design in Self-Insurance
Roundstone’s goal is to make self-funding attainable for all employers. With Roundstone, you have the flexibility to build your plan from the bottom up. You can customize your coverage based on your specific employee needs and underwriting data.
Most importantly, you’re not on your own with Roundstone. We have turnkey and recommended plan design templates that can make your transition from fully insured to self-funded as smooth as possible.
Claims Data Insights in a Self-Funded Plan
Roundstone values transparency. If you work with Roundstone’s preferred industry partners, you get transparent access to your claims data through our HIPAA-compliant CSI Dashboard. This tool gives you and our Cost Savings Investigator team insights into areas for improvement so you can make changes and/or implement solutions to control costs and provide the proper coverage for optimum utilization by employees.
Freedom to Choose Best-In-Class Solutions
With a self-funded group captive plan from Roundstone, you can choose which solution providers to work with. Freedom of choice allows you to implement employee well-being programs that are most relevant to your employee demographic. With the data insights provided by Roundstone’s CSI Dashboard, Roundstone’s Cost Containment team can recommend vetted solutions that meet your employees’ behavioral and mental health needs.
Year-Over-Year Savings in a Company Health Plan
Roundstone’s self-funded insurance offers year-over-year savings on your unused premiums. We give back 100% of what you don’t use. Those savings are yours to keep and use however you choose. As of 2023, Roundstone has distributed over $72M unspent captive premium pro rata to members.
Support Employee Behavioral and Mental Health Needs
Holistic healthcare that includes mental health can be a powerful asset in improving employee retention and attracting talent. Roundstone’s self-funded insurance can help your small to midsize business meet the growing demand for behavioral and mental health services.
Download our free eBook, Behavioral and Mental Health Cost-Containment Strategies, to discover ways a self-funded group captive plan with Roundstone can help you meet your employees’ behavioral and mental health needs while continuing to provide high-quality care at a lower cost.
About Roundstone: A Solution to Affordable Company Healthcare
Roundstone is an innovative employee health benefits company. We help small and midsize businesses offer competitive benefits at a lower cost by self-funding health insurance through our group medical captive. The Roundstone Captive enables companies to self-insure safely by pooling hundreds of employers together to share risk and save money.
With easy onboarding and personalized support every step of the way, the captive offers control, flexibility, and transparency and returns all savings back to employers where they belong. We believe in always aligning with the employers’ best interests and remain committed to our mission — quality, affordable healthcare and a better life for all.
Contact us today to speak to a Roundstone rep about how you can design a better plan that ensures the physical and mental health well-being of your workforce.
