It’s a wait-and-see year for employers, in part driven by the seemingly endless legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. But health care is big this year, like it’s been every other year in recent memory. Whether or not you believe ACA successfully or unsuccessfully reformed the structure of health insurance in America, you’ll agree costs are still an issue. Cheryl DeMars of The Alliance succinctly said, “The work of bending the cost curve is largely the business of physicians and hospitals, employers and consumers—not regulators.”
Patients—your employees—are reluctant participants in our nation’s shifting health care landscape. How we pare back our costs—whether in anticipation of the Cadillac tax or a shift to a private exchange—doesn’t matter. As employers, we influence how well Americans manage the increasing percentage of their budgets spent on health care. So, as you continue to focus on benefit design and administration, employees also need you to step up your health care education efforts. The era of sophisticated, metrics-based communication has arrived.
Where should you focus your efforts? We see three major areas.
We’ll dive into these three topics in upcoming articles. As always, we’ll offer practical tips on how communication concepts can help you address them with your employees.