Top 5 Tips for Driving Down the Cost of Health Care

Health care costs continue to rise. Here are five important ways to help you ease the pain and protect your bottom line.

1. Put your employees in the driver’s seat of their own health care. Consumer-Driven Health Plans (CDHP) and High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) allow your employees to call the shots on how they spend their health care dollars. Employees use a medical savings account, like a Health Savings Account or Health Reimbursement Account, to pay upfront for general health care expenses. Once an employee’s deductible has been met, the employer-sponsored health care coverage would kick in.
   
   
2. Turn in your Health Reimbursement Account for a Health Savings Account. Health Reimbursement Accounts are funded with employer contributions, whereas Health Savings Accounts allow employees to direct tax-free dollars into an account to pay for qualified medical expenses. Remaining balances may be rolled over from year to year, and the funds are portable if the employee leaves the company.
   
   
3. Rev up your disease management offerings. A well-planned disease management program can improve the health and well-being of both your employees and your company’s bottom line. Currently, 45 percent of the U.S. population suffers from a chronic disease, and chronic conditions account for 75 percent of all health care spending.
   
   
4. Have a fully loaded wellness program. Healthier employees are more productive and less costly to insure. Flu shots and smoking cessation are the two most popular wellness programs in use, but you can trim health care costs further by offering additional lifestyle management programs. Consider adding any of these programs: weight management, nutrition, stress management or physical activity.
   
   
5. Keep track of your work force. Indirect expenses associated with your employees’ absences are typically four times higher than actual medical costs. Absence and leave management solutions help employers manage absences against their company attendance policies and use absences to trigger when employees need disease management and other health and productivity services.

And this is just the start of what you can do to meet your company’s health-related goals. Click here to learn more ways to reduce costs through implementing integrated health and productivity programs.