Digital-first health care benefits: 5 things for HR pros to consider
If digital-first benefits aren’t being used to their full potential, they can actually end up driving higher costs.
After two years in the trenches of COVID and the Great Resignation, are HR pros ready to take on the herculean task of navigating a sea of new digital health and wellness benefits?
As if they haven’t had enough responsibilities during the pandemic, shouldering new demands like workplace safety plans and COVID-19 policies, human resources managers are going to have their work cut out for them post-pandemic. HR professionals must now figure out how to manage the exponential growth of health care solutions. In some cases, companies have already added numerous point solutions focused on specific care needs (fertility, mental health, fitness etc.) and HR leads are struggling to rationalize and assess effectiveness of those offerings. Additionally, as employers deal with ongoing recruitment and retention issues, they need to accurately assess the overwhelming number of new solutions to ensure they are providing competitive benefits.
Related: Reassessing employee benefits: 3 key trends
At the same time, there’s growing pressure on preventative care providers. A recent survey completed by the Business Group on Health found that 94% of employers are anticipating an increase in medical service utilization due to care delayed by the pandemic. 68% of employers anticipate higher prevalence of late-stage cancers due to delayed screenings, making ease of utilization even more crucial as people rush to catch up and employers rush to prevent increased costs.
In this environment, it is crucial that benefits managers take a fresh look at their existing and potential digital solutions. Here are five key points to consider.
1. Engagement
If digital-first benefits aren’t being used to their full potential, they can actually end up driving higher costs. We think that engagement with solutions should be at least 45% to ensure effectiveness. If employees aren’t using a solution, there is just no way that the solution can provide value. Here it is crucial that benefit managers understand and are able to measure engagement as well as employee compliance with care plans.
2. True telemedicine
It’s not uncommon that only a handful of employees are using the telemedicine solutions you’re paying for. Employees may not know what telemedicine solutions are being offered, they may be intimidated by a new way of receiving care, or they might find them cumbersome to use. Given 85% of all medical care can be handled virtually, benefit managers should be looking for solutions that address this disconnect head on. Look for telemedicine solutions that are able to handle care virtually and in-person, can provide direct care from licensed clinicians, and are easy to use!
3. Recruiting effectiveness
One of the biggest workplace challenges recruiting teams are tackling is rising employee demand for better benefits. 80% of job seekers believe that post-pandemic employers must re-evaluate their benefits offering, and 54% would even consider taking a lower-paying job with a better benefits package. Properly structured digital-first solutions can be a great draw for recruiting – especially when employees enjoy the solutions. Ask vendors what their patient satisfaction rate is and for case studies from other employers.
4. Silos and fragmentation
Studies have shown that fragmentation results in lower quality and higher costs among chronically ill patients. Siloed care, which can be the direct result of multiple point solutions, results in increased inaccessibility of care, and patients receiving conflicting medical advice. Look for solutions that can actually help to reduce this fragmentation by guiding patients through the complex medical system.
5. A hybrid approach
While the pandemic was the test for virtual care, the reality is that patients need a hybrid of virtual and in-person care. Point solutions that “dead-end” with virtual care and have no way to connect to in-person care are not purpose-built for the new hybrid environment. When assessing a digital solution, HR managers should consider how well these integrate into an employee’s holistic wellness and care plans, which include in-person visits.
What this means for employees
Ultimately, the steps above are designed to help HR managers reduce the potential negative impact of siloed or single-illness digital solutions on employee health care. One way to look at this is through the lens of “collaborative care,” which is widely recognized as the gold standard in health and is the direct opposite of the multiple-specialty approach.
Take, for example, an employee struggling with multiple “invisible” health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, anxiety, or depression, having to manage each condition in siloed solutions can lead to more complications. They have to spend considerable time making appointments and receiving treatment from multiple specialists. Ultimately with little coordination between providers, there’s no way to ensure that patients are receiving the best care options or that the complexity of their conditions are completely understood by various providers.
In an example of how care for this patient could work in a collaborative, integrated environment, an employee struggling with physical symptoms such as stomach problems, visits their primary care provider. As part of the exam, the provider performs a mental health screening that indicates significant anxiety and depression and these conditions can manifest as physical ailments like stomach issues. After a physical screening, the primary care provider recommends mental health therapy as part of the holistic treatment plan and monitors the patient’s progress. This is the effective collaborative care model, where the patient is referred to the most appropriate care, and then actual discussions between providers ensures the treatment is working with crucial information flowing between treatment teams.
To be clear, the proliferation of single-illness digital solutions is based on a flawed, siloed model that can ultimately create a drag on best practices such as collaborative care. However, with the five steps outlined above, HR managers can ensure the right guardrails are in place.
When the pandemic shut down workplaces across the United States, HR managers emerged in a spotlight role. In addition to routine responsibilities like employee engagement and talent development, HR leaders shouldered new demands: workplace safety plans, COVID-19 policies, and revamped retention strategies to prevent high-volume employee attrition. In meeting this monumental challenge, HR became one of the most prominent and important voices in the workplace.
Today, the challenge continues as benefits managers work to ensure employees catch up on their health care and manage the potential fallout of missed care. Here too, HR managers can use their expertise and learnings from the pandemic to improve health outcomes for their employees and become the hero-advocates that they were meant to be.
Dr. Heather Towery is vice president of clinical strategy and enterprise partnerships at Eden Health.
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