We don’t have to tell you that healthcare cost increases are unsustainable for most American companies. Businesses and employees alike are suffering from out-of-control healthcare costs. Businesses are forced to pass along increases that often negate cost-of-living pay increases, and employees are forced to carry the burden of increased payroll deductions and higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.
What’s even worse is not knowing just how bad your annual healthcare renewal may be. The American health insurance industry has fine-tuned the “rules of engagement” that benefit only themselves. If you’re like most businesses, you will not know your annual increase until about 90 days before the renewal date, you will not know why you are getting the increase, and you will not be given the information or tools to manage the cost.
LOSING FOCUS ON “THE WHY”
Because we have been programmed to think in 12-month renewal cycles and to focus on ways to mitigate annual increases, we understandably lose focus on the “why.” Why does it cost $1 million to provide healthcare for 100 employees and their families? Why can’t we control this expense like our other company expenses? Why can’t we receive the information vital to managing such a large expense? Why are there so few options, forcing us to choose the best of the worst every year?
If you ask yourself these same questions, you’re not alone. Most businesses have no other choice but to trust their insurance company and broker if they want to offer health insurance. After all, every once in a while, you can dodge a bullet and get a rate hold or a single-digit increase. In these years, you feel victorious and satisfied to put the whole mess to bed for another nine months. Likewise, in years when you get a sizable increase, there is always a carrier willing to give you a “sweetheart deal” even though year two may be ugly. In this case, you just kick the can down the road. Isn’t that what everyone does? Besides, employees have grown accustomed to carrier, provider, and formulary changes, so staying with the same insurance company year after year would seem odd.
WHAT IF YOU COULD PURCHASE HEALTHCARE DIFFERENTLY?
What if there were other local businesses that have made the decision to opt-out of a broken health insurance system and take control of their own destiny. With Health Rosetta plans by BCF Group, local businesses know their costs, implement targeted savings strategies, and even offer “free” healthcare to their employees.
We help businesses tap into local resources designed to help lower healthcare costs. You will become an informed purchaser; you will regain control over your bottom line, and you will engage with only properly aligned partners who deliver results you can measure.
WHERE DO I START?
To get started, we recommend that you begin to understand a bit more about the Heath Rosetta blueprint. This paper is an executive summary of Dave Chase’s book on how to deliver world-class healthcare at half the cost. Next, we encourage you to read a BCF Group case study on how a local company continues to take back control of their healthcare expense.
If these ideas make sense to you, you may want to ask your current broker what strategies and resources they offer to reduce your annual healthcare costs. Often, well-intentioned agents are familiar with these ideas but lack the firsthand experience of “doing it,” so understandably they lack the confidence to suggest them to their clients.
Furthermore, we have seen established brokers and large agencies unwilling to look beyond their lucrative carrier revenue deals to even consider a better way forward. As a result, the status quo can proliferate, and businesses and employees lose.
If you are like most businesses, you would like nothing more than to offer the best healthcare benefits to your employees and their families, but at times it can feel like a health insurance ID card is by far the riskiest corporate credit card you can give an employee.
Businesses that offer health insurance do not have advocates for prudent spending. Your checkbook is completely exposed, and you have no means to question how your money is being spent. Employees also lack the proper tools to keenly navigate their own healthcare expenses.
AT THE END OF THE DAY, RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IS EVERYTHING.
You must consciously build the right health insurance plan to protect your assets. It’s not hard to do. It just requires a different approach.
Don’t let health insurance be your ruin. Take steps to control lower costs just as you do other expenses. We’re here to help.