Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey
The 23rd annual Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey results are in! This survey was completed by 687 U.S. employers this summer and it reflects the employers’ overall health program decisions and strategies for 2018. The survey found that overall, employers understand employee health and well-being plays a huge role in their organization’s success. Employers also realize that by focusing on their employees’ health, needs, and wants, they are creating a happy and productive workforce, as well as giving their organizations a competitive edge in retaining and hiring the best employees. Read on to learn more key takeaways from this survey!
Controlling Health Care Costs
To help control rising health care costs for both employees and themselves, employers stated the following as their top priorities:
1. Focus on clinical conditions, such as metabolic syndrome/diabetes, musculoskeletal disease and mental/behavioral health, to reduce high-cost claims.
2. Improve overall pharmacy costs especially when it comes to specialty pharmacy cost and utilization.
3. Encourage the use of high-performance networks, centers of excellence and telemedicine to ensure the highest quality, most cost effective care.
4. Consider adding low-point-of-care cost plans as an option rather than just the all account-based health plans (ABHP).
5. Emphasize the importance of total well-being and work towards improving employee total well-being through physical, social, emotional and financial programs. Also, focus on connecting these efforts to corporate culture and the employee value proposition (EVP).
Improving Engagement
To help improve employee engagement, organizations are starting to focus on improving the overall employee experience. They are accomplishing this by connecting the organization’s purpose to its culture, and by providing the necessary and most up-to-date tools and resources for their employees. Listed below are other top cited ways employers are working to improve employee engagement:
1.Flexible work arrangements
2. Paid parental leave
3. Diversity and inclusion initiatives
4. Events that give back to the local community
Choice is Very Important
Today’s workforce is very diverse and employees are in all stages of their career. Therefore, having the ability to choose plan offerings that best meet individual employee needs and life stages is very important. To address this, employers stated that they are:
1. Letting employees choose their health plan options or insurers.
2. Expanding the options of voluntary and supplemental benefits.
3. Making new and different benefits, such as childcare services, time off to volunteer and onsite services, a core part of the overall the employee value proposition (EVP).
To learn more about the 23rd annual Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey and the results, click here! You can also download the full report from Willis Towers Watson here.
