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GeneralStruggling to Find Effective Strategies to Educate Employees on Health Plan Options? Here’s What You Need to Do

Frank Mengert Frank Mengert2 years ago14 min

Struggling to Find Effective Strategies to Educate Employees on Health Plan Options? Here’s What You Need to Do

Health insurance is one of the most important employee benefits. According to research, 55% of small businesses and 99% of large organizations offer healthcare benefits to their employees.

Unfortunately, offering insurance isn’t enough. Employees may encounter barriers when they try to use their insurance, uncertainty about choosing a plan, and other limitations that ruin the experience.

According to a survey from UnitedHealthcare, only 9% of employees have a solid understanding of their health plan. With how complicated health insurance has become, this is no surprise. Employees have a lot to understand and decode, such as shifting regulations, eligible dependent verification, flexible spending accounts, and more.

If employers provide education to employees to help them make sense of it all, that goes a long way toward benefits adoption, employee satisfaction, and employee retention. Here’s how.

Break Down Health Insurance Options

Businesses that offer health insurance should have a benefits strategy in place and a way to explain benefits to employees.

In the past, it may have been enough to provide employees with a brochure outlining their insurance plan. That’s not sufficient anymore, especially with multiple healthcare options like High Deductible Health Plans, employee assistance programs, and other options.

Now, it’s up to the employer to create a guide to healthcare plans. This should simplify the key areas that your employees should know about health insurance, such as the basic terminology and the important details between plans.

Here are some details to include:

  • Provider networks: Otherwise known as managed plans, the provider network includes what doctors, hospitals, clinics, and laboratories the employee’s insurance plan covers. The most common types of provider networks are health maintenance organizations (HMOs), preferred provider organizations (PPOs), and point-of-service (POS). Summarize these models and provide research for employees to search for covered healthcare providers.
  • Covered prescriptions: Covered prescriptions or drug formularies cover the different tiers of co-pays for prescription drugs. It’s important to outline the general copay tiers and provide examples for what may or may not be covered. Depending on the medications your employees may need, this can make a significant difference in costs each year.
  • Monthly premiums: The premiums are somewhat straightforward, but it’s good to outline them for employees to ensure they understand their own financial responsibility and what the employer covers.
  • Deductibles: Some healthcare plans have a deductible limit before insurance kicks in. Higher deductibles may result in lower monthly premiums, but not always. These are separate from co-pays, so it’s important that employees understand what they may be responsible for throughout the year.
  • Additional plan benefits: Some insurance plans have additional benefits for hospitalization, urgent care, maternity care, and more. Some of the jargon can get involved, so create a glossary and basic explanations for what these benefits include.

There are some other areas of the healthcare plan that you should cover, including:

  • How to access insurance
  • Where to find information about networks and coverage
  • Sick leave policies
  • Dependent verification and care policies
  • Applicable open enrollment periods and deadlines

Get Feedback About What’s Important

It’s important for education to be relevant to the employees. This means you have to understand their experience and priorities so you can fit those needs into the educational resources you provide.

Reach out to your employees and ask what they would like as far as benefits education. This can be done using regular anonymous surveys to the workforce or by holding a meeting. Some employees will feel more comfortable sharing questions and concerns privately or anonymously, however, so keep that in mind when you ask for feedback.

Offer Accessible Educational Resources

Every employee should have access to education about healthcare plans outside of organized sessions. This ensures that there is clear communication and understanding. You can use monthly healthcare email updates, quick sessions during lunch hours each month, or with a library of resources that include all your materials.

Prior to open enrollment, make sure employees have access to the resources they need to prepare for the process. Both virtual and physical tools are valuable, and create an open-door policy to allow employees to ask questions or address concerns comfortably.

Automate the Process

Manual education initiatives, such as check-ins and paper packets, are difficult to track and cumbersome to use, especially as the organization scales. Many organizations prefer automated benefits administration systems to keep employees updated on changes and eliminate the time-consuming paperwork.

Automation and online resources allow employers to distribute information efficiently, as well as answer questions that employees may have.

Offer New Hire and Ongoing Engagement and Support

Human resources is a key component of ensuring employees understand their healthcare needs and the services covered by their healthcare plan. However, most employees only discuss their health insurance once when they are onboarded.

New hire onboarding is a crucial time to discuss health insurance, but it shouldn’t stop there. You should provide annual support for employees to answer questions about health insurance plans and update them on changes.

Employ Different Communication Types

People learn in different ways, especially with complex and mundane information like benefits. Using different communication methods can help you serve your employees better.

Invest time in summarizing an essential plan and ensuring it is easily accessible. If you use automation with an employee benefits platform, add multimedia elements to support engagement and retention. Some examples include videos, graphs, images, Q&As, and quizzes.

Though there’s a lot of upfront work involved, these resources can be reused over and over. You shouldn’t need to change or update them unless there’s a big change in the healthcare plan.

Provide Incentives

Turning education into a game or contest holds their attention, especially if the topic is dry like healthcare benefits. Even modest prizes, such as a free lunch, branded merchandise, or gift vouchers can be enough to encourage participation and get them involved in the process.

Share Success Stories

Another effective and proven method of educating employees about healthcare benefits is to encourage employees to share their successful experiences. You can use a variety of options, including a face-to-face session, a video, or a written testimonial.

Personal stories inspire genuine interest, but they also act as a testament to the effectiveness of the benefits your company offers and can inspire interest in the programs and education.

Talk About Benefits Outside of Open Enrollment

Open enrollment emails to employees are an important time to begin discussing benefits with employees, but it shouldn’t end there. Remember that employee plans may need to change with life events or seasons, such as starting a family or adding family members. It’s important for employees to be educated and informed year-round to help them make strong coverage decisions for their needs and goals.

If you want to make it more fun, pose a monthly trivia question related to healthcare benefits or send out a newsletter highlighting different features of your healthcare plans. Employees will be engaged and informed, inspiring more interest in the options leading up to open enrollment.

Set Your Team Up for Success

Offering healthcare benefits is key to attracting and retaining talent, but that doesn’t go very far if they can’t fully use them. Having a comprehensive benefits education program and ensuring that your employees can fully use them is important for creating a healthy, productive workplace.

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Frank Mengert

Frank Mengert

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.

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