Gaby Baughn
Five More Tips to EMPOWER your employees to be smart consumers of health care!
We wrote a blog article in April about Consumerism and how to empower your employees to be smart consumers of health care. We know how difficult and confusing benefits can be, so check out these five additional tips to continue this education for your employees to enable them to advocate around their own health care and out-of-pocket expenses!
2019 HSA Limits Announced
The IRS has published inflation-adjusted Health Saving Account (HSA) contribution limits for 2019, along with minimum deductible and maximum-out-of-pocket expenses for the high deductible health plans (HDHP) associated with HSAs.
How are you Teaching Employees Consumerism?
Current benefit plans have given more purchasing and decision-making power to the members with higher out-of-pocket responsibilities. Members do not always understand what their benefit plans cover, and the costs associated to that coverage, which can cause a lot of confusion and frustration.
We at Fall River Employee Benefits understand that benefit plans can be an intimidating and confusing subject. We want to empower and educate our client’s employees to be their own best health advocates and make informed decisions regarding their health care.
We love helping our clients create year-round campaigns to teach their employees to be better consumers of health care. There are many topics to cover, so we’ll likely do several articles in this area.
Increased Costs Due to Unnecessary Medical Care and Insufficient Member Education
Recent articles from Benefits Pro and National Public Radio (NPR) claim that many patients are receiving unnecessary or “low-value” medical procedures, which are significantly increasing health care costs.
According to Benefits Pro, “health care consumers are sinking $25 billion a year on low-value procedures”. The Washington Health Alliance, after reviewing claims for 1.3 million patients in the state, found that 600,000+ patients per year are receiving treatment they do not need. The staggering cost for this unnecessary treatment is estimated at $282 million, and ultimately impacts rising health care costs.
How Will Association Health Plans Impact Employers?
Funding Expires for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
Have you updated your CHIP notice?
Common Misconceptions about Generic Drugs
Despite this cost advantage, there are a lot of misconceptions that are keeping consumers at arm’s length.
Cybersecurity in a Post-HIPAA world
Finally, a Little Relief on Drug Trends
According to an article released by Optum, recent data shows Hepatitis C medications are positively contributing to specialty drug trend reductions and achieving lasting clinical results.
FDA approved medications for Hepatitis C, such as Sovaldi and Harvoni, started entering the market in 2013, and with great controversy. These medications have been effective, but at a huge cost. The initial price (which has since moderated) of a single course of a typical drug could run $85,000 – 95,000 in just three months.