How Companies Are Taking A More Proactive Approach To Employee Benefits

Employers are looking ahead about what they spend on employee health — and how they spend it — in three areas.

 

As the omicron wave fades, forward-thinking firms consider how they may use health-care spending to anticipate their employees’ demands.

According to a study conducted by the Business Group on Health, fewer firms are waiting to see what happens with employee benefits. Only 6% of benefit executives indicated they were waiting to see what their employees’ most pressing needs were before extending their products.

 

Employers may have to reconsider what they’re doing as health-care costs rise and competition for talent intensifies. Here are three areas where employers are looking ahead about what they spend on employee health — and how they spend it.

 

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is one area in which benefit leaders are investing new resources. Medical practitioners employ technology such as phones, laptops, and message systems to give patient services without requiring patients to visit a central location. It’s a possibility that’s well-suited to scattered workforces, where many employees work from home and are more accustomed to using remote services.

Long hailed as the next big thing in health care, the age of telemedicine may have finally come. According to the Business Group on Health, 76% of benefit leaders are increasing the number of telemedicine alternatives available to their employees. In the effort to provide lower-cost, higher-quality population health by 2020, approximately $15 billion will be invested in digital health and other technologies meant to disrupt established providers. By 2021, it will have risen to more than $29 billion.

It’s logical. Many people have found that they can work, shop, and entertain themselves from the comfort of their own homes. It’s only natural to expand health-care services.

 

Mental health

Companies are also boosting the amount of money they spend and the services they provide for mental health. Some of these are crisis services, while others help employees manage their mental health over time. According to Springbuk’s application survey for the Healthiest Firms 2020–2021, 95% of employers aim to include stress management in their employee health care services this year.

Patients’ requests for care have increased in tandem with their mental health requirements. Cigna, for example, observed a 27 percent increase in outpatient behavioral health visits from 2019 to 2020, and the trend persisted in 2021.

Although an increase in mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, and depression is contributing to this trend, there is a silver lining. People’s lives can be substantially improved when they seek mental health treatment on their own initiative. “Studies have demonstrated that proactive psychiatry is associated with reduced hospital length of stay, enhanced psychiatric service usage, reduced time to psychiatric consultation, and improved provider and nurse satisfaction,” according to the American Psychiatric Association.

According to our 2022 Employee Health Trends Report, despite a drop in overall telemedicine usage in recent months, the rate used for mental health has stayed stable and has proven a wonderful option to in-person treatment with mental health doctors. We anticipate that spending on mental health care will continue to rise, making it a desirable perk to keep and hire employees.

 

Health equity

Expansion of telemedicine and mental health services is not merely a means to an end. It can also help to improve health equity by ensuring that the health-care system reflects inclusive and welcoming attitudes. “The entire impact of digital health rests in its ability to both create inclusion across age, gender, [and] race, as well as to close gaps in primary health care,” one expert recently claimed.

However, much work remains to be done, particularly in the area of racial bias in health care. Closing the equity gap will necessitate immediate expenditures, but it may result in long-term savings. This is because by addressing health inequities, providers may be able to reduce costs. According to one estimate, these differences cost the economy $93 billion in unnecessary medical costs and $42 billion in lost productivity each year.

 

Adding it all up

If there’s one thing that the epidemic has taught benefits leaders, it’s to expect the unexpected. As a result, the more proactive they can be with their services, the more in control they will be when things shift. These developments could lead to health-care services that rely more heavily on digital delivery, are more mental health-focused, and are more inclusive.

 

 

 

 

Source: https://www.benefitspro.com/2022/04/21/how-employers-are-becoming-more-proactive-with-employee-benefits/