Some employers play chess with their health plan while others play checkers. What are you?
Those who play chess have a strategy and a game plan and anticipate 2, to 3 or more moves at a time. Those that are playing checkers are simply reacting to what their opponent does by jumping their opponents piece one at a time.
A health plan is very similar in regards to a strategy for one, two, three years and out. Those companies are constantly looking at alternatives and are proactive in their approach to their health plan and have a plan to mitigate increased costs, to have competitive rates, low claims, and advanced plan designs. They anticipate their opponents (health insurance companies, hospitals, etc.) increased costs and have a plan to battle them and overcome their opponents moves. They want get to a point of checkmate and hold everybody at bay.
Those that are playing checkers typically think they’re making a positive move by jumping their opponent, only to get themselves set up to get double jumped by their opponent because they didn’t see something the next move coming – like a rate increase, high claim costs, specialty drug prices, etc.
If you don’t have a three plus-year strategy to attract and retain employees, and make your plan affordable and sustainable for your company as well as your employees, you are playing checkers. It’s a whole lot more than just changing insurance companies from time to time or cost shifting – that’s checkers.
You wouldn’t believe how many times I see health plans for employers that are purely a game of checkers. They really don’t know what their next move is until they get a rate increase, and even then all they do is go out and look for a new insurance company, or raise deductibles and employee contributions to offset that cost. Building a strategy takes innovation and commitment to weather those checker jumps and go after the checkmate.
We recently conducted several highly successful employer round table discussions about containing healthcare costs and strategies for employers to make their plans affordable and sustainable for everyone. If you’d like to know more and what about those costs or those strategies are and plan your chess moves, you can call me at 970-349-7707 or email me at [email protected]
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.
