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Seven Cost-Saving Solutions That Reduce Healthcare Costs
According to the 2019 October Department of Labor inflation report, healthcare costs rose 4.3 percent year-over-year, surging to the highest levels in three years. The increasing cost of hospital services and rising drug costs are to blame for this surge, making healthcare costs the fastest growing sector in the economy. If a 4.3 percent increase…
Read MoreTotally Wasted: A Story About Market Failure in Healthcare
Have you ever sat down to go through your personal budget and, as you’re scanning through your purchases, thought to yourself, I could have gotten that for less? You add up all those “could-haves”, and you’re left with a sum at the end of the month that you wish could have gone towards new shoes,…
Read MorePrice Transparency Alone Will Not Reduce the Cost of Healthcare Without Consumer Interest in Shopping
The economist, Milton Friedman in “How to Cure Health Care” writes that one of the factors “explaining both the high level of spending on medical care and the dissatisfaction with that spending” is “nobody spends somebody else’s money as wisely or as frugally as he spends his own.” His observation is a crucial factor for…
Read MoreMr./Ms. Benefits Broker, Don’t forget how important You are. (Let me remind you)
Hey Mr./Ms. Benefits Broker, I know you don’t have much time, given it is the big, bad Q4, after all. I’ve heard the many variations of “Sorry, I am crushed in the 4th quarter” and the “I’m in the thick of renewal meetings, please be patient.” As this isn’t my first Q4 working in the…
Read MoreHow a price transparency tool can help maximize the value of an HSA!
Health savings accounts (HSAs) provide employees enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), a tax-advantaged way to save and pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses. Combining a price transparency solution with an HSA account allows employees to decrease their healthcare costs by 30 to 40 percent today and maximize the value of an HSA for future medical…
Read MoreThe Bystander Effect and the Employee Benefits Broker
I’m pretty sure everyone has at least heard of the show Seinfeld. Do we remember the finale of the series? The gang ends up arrested, imprisoned, and go through a trial as a result of a duty to rescue violation that requires bystander to help out in such a situation. To remind you of the…
Read MoreBenefits that Benefit All
As a relatively new entrant into the workforce, I feel confident expressing that there are opportunities for improvement when it comes to benefit plans and the consideration and impact on current and future generations – specifically, health plans. (And of course, I feel confident expressing myself. As a millennial, I’ve been told that I’m allowed…
Read MoreYour employees are wasting $12.49 a day by not shopping for healthcare
Let’s face it, we’re all frustrated by increasing out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. We spend more on premiums, for less coverage, and hope that an unexpected medical claim doesn’t financially ruin us. Pricing in healthcare is not transparent like other markets where consumers can easily determine the price of something before they buy it. It would be…
Read MoreIs a health savings account (HSA) better than a 401(k)? You decide.
I have written about the virtues of HSAs before. But never did it become so clear to me that HSAs can be better than other retirement accounts such as 401(k) and IRA (I had a hunch, though). HSAs have been around since 2003; yet, in my opinion, the HSA is the most misunderstood, the most…
Read MoreI’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!
A friend of mine owns three wellness centers and employs 80 people. Yesterday, she told me that her health insurance broker made his yearly visit with a renewal policy where the premiums keep going up … and up … and up. In the decade she has been in business, premiums have never gone down. And…
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