How your benefits plan can be a long-term savings tool
To truly understand how your benefits plan can change your business for the better, you need to look ahead, not just until the end of the year.
Many business owners see their benefits savings as one-off opportunities. The changes that are made in their plan, such as implementing telehealth options or sourcing more cost-effective medication, may save them hundreds of thousands of dollars in one year. To see the full potential of a cost-effective benefits plan often takes time, however, and employers who are willing to wait often see even more massive savings years down the line.
Related: Why you shouldn’t wait another minute to make changes to your benefits plan
Trusting your advisor to create long-term savings from your benefits plan is crucial to using your plan as a tool that can help your business grow. Here’s why:
Short-term risks for long-term rewards
Change can be intimidating, especially when the future of your business is on the line. That’s why, for many business owners, even the prospect of savings thousands on their benefits plan in one year still isn’t enough to convince them to make changes. Looking toward the future, though, those savings can multiply and turn into a strategic advantage for your company.
A good advisor will understand your concerns and do their part to educate you and your employees so that you understand how their proposed changes would impact everyone involved in your benefits plan. If you still don’t think the money you could save in one year is worth the risk, multiply those savings by a few years. Your future self will thank you for making a choice now that will have saved you hundreds of thousands of dollars in a decade’s time.
The impact of years of savings
What could $10,000 do for your business/? How about $50,000? Or $100,000? Even seemingly small, simple changes can yield these results and more over the years, creating opportunities to grow your business.
For example, while working with one client, we discovered that we could bring the cost of just one drug down from $88,525 to $16,179, saving them $72,346. Imagine how these savings could impact a business as they multiply over time, providing a company with sufficient funds to:
- Hire more employees
- Purchase new machinery
- Increase employee salaries
To truly understand how your benefits plan can change your business for the better, you need to look ahead, not just until the end of the year.
The bigger plan
A great benefits advisor won’t consider their work done after they unlock savings opportunities within your benefits plan. Just as your business evolves over time, your advisor will ensure that your plan evolves with it. The savings uncovered in the first year of your new plan will likely expand over time to reflect the changes in your company.
Your benefits plan isn’t a stagnant expense – it’s a strategic advantage for your business. Working with an advisor who respects the long-term potential of your plan by treating it as an ever-evolving tool can ensure that the savings you unlock this year will only grow in the years that follow.
A brighter future in benefits
One-time savings are great, but accumulating savings are even better, especially when that money can be put right back into your growing business. Though changing your benefits plan can be intimidating, a great advisor will ensure that your risk pays off in the form of big savings that can used to help your company evolve in both the immediate and distant future.
Jim Blachek flipped his traditional brokerage model in 2017 to focus solely on consulting and building value-based health plans. In 2019 he co-founded a consulting only firm Dynamic Benefit Solutions and founded Local Script a transparent pharmacy and marketing organization focused on reducing employer and employee costs while supporting the local community.
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