4 Ways Employers Can Reshape the Health Benefits Market - Mercer Signal

Jean Moore writes for Mercer Signal about the clout employers hold when it comes to employee healthcare purchasing, and how organizations can positively influence the future of healthcare.

According to Moore, there are four things companies can do to help reshape the benefits market:

1. Pay for value, not volume: Value-based care encourages more evidenced-based practices and addresses problems with underuse, overuse, and misuse in the current healthcare system.
2. Join the drive to better quality: Demand higher quality services from insurance carriers and track quality data to reduce inefficiencies, unnecessary procedures, and wasteful spending.
3. Personalize the experience: Use technology to engage your employees in their own healthcare and work with vendors to increase patient satisfaction.
4. Embrace disruption: Change may create some short-term disruption, but long-term it can generate great rewards for your organization and your employees. Use quality measures to track program outcomes and ensure all services are aligned with your company's objectives.

Speaking especially to that last point, one highly effective change being made by many small- to mid-size organizations is the switch to self-insurance and partial self-insurance, both of which can create organizational savings and still provide employees with high-quality, affordable benefits for the long-term. Learn more about partially self-funding your healthcare program in our Quick Guide to Partial Self-Insurance: