Posts Tagged ‘Insight for Business Leaders’
Pay Attention! How to Get People to Care About Healthcare at Work
By Matthew McCormick, Partnership Executive, MMS Analytics, Inc. According to MetLife’s most recent Employee Benefit Trends Study, “the most important benefits to employees have two things in common: 1) they play a central role in helping them achieve their personal and work-related goals, and 2) they address their main stressors, particularly around personal finances, retirement,…
Read MoreWhy the healthcare industry won’t let me shorten my presentations
By Christopher Matrumalo, VP of Marketing, MMS Analytics, Inc. I give a lot of presentations—easily hundreds and perhaps even thousands each year for the past several years now. I field a LOT of questions from my audiences. Still today, I find myself amazed at how effective the healthcare industry has remained in perpetuating misconceptions and…
Read MoreBut What About the Carrier’s Tools?
Do you know how often I hear the above question from brokers who are looking to provide a price transparency tool to their employer groups? So much so that, like a typical millennial, (Don’t worry I won’t say it, but it starts with OK and rhymes with doomer) I decided to make a meme out…
Read MoreSeven 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 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 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 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 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…
Read MoreScared of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs)? You shouldn’t be. Here’s why.
For no good reason, HDHP has become a dirty four-letter acronym for healthcare consumers. The WebMD article, “Why Your Employees Are Afraid of Your High-Deductible Health Plan (HDHP)—And What You Can Do About It”, by Christine Muldoon, Senior Director of Health Plan Market Strategy, may be from 2013, but it’s even more relevant today, as…
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