Dennis Triplett //April 4, 2013//
When open enrollment ends and every employee has checked a box for a health plan, some may believe the employer’s job is finished. It’s actually just begun.
The true challenge of health care runs the rest of the year. An employee could get a diagnosis of diabetes or heart disease or be dealing with improper diet or stress-driven behaviors that could degrade individual health and overall employee well-being. And lost productivity due to illness could cause bottom-line damage to the employer’s financial performance.
To truly get a grip on health care, employers need to engage employees all year long on practical issues of personal and financial health.
Employers must get and keep employees – and their families – engaged because it is the choices employees and their families make that have the biggest impact on their health and health care costs. Benefits communication aimed at educating employees and their families about using plans effectively, and how daily choices and actions can impact health must be consistent throughout the entire year.
Employers need to focus on benefits communication because a lack of engagement has clear costs, direct and indirect, including:
Developing a plan for engagement
Start with a strategy to communicate – before, during and after enrollment – how employees can adopt better health habits and most advantageously use health benefits throughout the year, which will ultimately improve both their personal and financial health.
A few broad strategy principles for engaging employees:
In working with hundreds of employers, one fact has become clear: To put the brakes on spiraling health care costs, employers and their health care partners must work together to change employees’ behavior – not just provide benefits that cover costs of getting sick and expect health to improve.