Craig Hasday

Remember that you can’t win them all. Gracefully accepting a less than optimal outcome is defining - especially with your team. And importantly don’t look to place blame. Regrouping around lessons learned can be a powerful stance for rebuilding or for the next stressful situation. If it doesn’t kill you it usually makes you stronger.

The evolution of workplace wellness has been fascinating to watch. Introducing general wellbeing protocols led to a lot of early mover frustration as employers sought to find impossible ROI to justify supporting these costs. And wellness morphed into a “culture” building strategy and a must have for those employees who value gym credits, smoker cessation programs and similar perks. But currently we look at wellness through a targeted data driven lens. Incenting necessary preventive care has become simple and effective but with the availability of weight management medical options like GLP-1 drugs and bariatric surgery, employers can be much more effective using wellness to affect measurable reduction in healthcare cost drivers.

This is overwhelmingly the most important consideration. Once a problem is identified, determining whether to in source or out source an action plan involves assessing internal resources and capacity. If an outsourced path is elected, evaluating that partners’ real experience, capabilities and capacity to perform should be carefully reviewed. Too often clients and even advisors fall for a well crafted sales pitch and the actual results fall short. Too often the vendors “case studies” are no more than lipstick on a pig. Choose carefully or work with an advisor with the experience to guide you.

Your provider will know the most effective strategies to streamline prior authorization. Enlist the help of the office staff and doctor if needed to advocate for needed care. Determine the symptoms or other indications including step therapies which might be needed to clear the coverage barrier. Once you are aware of the reason for the protocol it’s easier to work with the provider to establish that you have meet that hurdle.

Most employers focus on controlling rising benefit costs. There may be savings based upon how you acquire benefit today. For example we have saved 10-40% for our clients by modifying their pharmacy purchasing strategy and not changing their benefit. There are also many benefits which can be added with little or no employer cost. In fact Many vendors are willing to help subsidize the cost of deploying a communication strategy. An effective benefit consultant can help you deploy a customized solution for your organization. Contact me at EPIC Brokers if you would like more information.

Don’t forget your bricks and mortar employees. Being remote is a benefit which employees who are on-site don’t receive. Perhaps periodic on site lunches might be a good policy to introduce as an incentive to build culture for those in the office.