Implementing Transparency Services

Here’s how to improve ROI on your benefits investments

To control the rising cost of health care, more and more companies are complementing their benefits offerings with transparency resources. According to a recent Mercer survey, 82 percent of employers will offer transparency services in 2018. These services empower employees to understand, locate and ultimately select quality, cost-effective health care treatments, procedures and providers. That translates to reduced out-of-pocket spending for employees and lower health care costs for their employers.

 

And while the value of transparency is clear, employers are still struggling to ensure these services are being used to their fullest potential. Improving transparency utilization begins with awareness, access and attention paid to employees’ specific circumstances and health care needs. Here’s how employers can make sure employees have what they need to take advantage of transparency services, and ultimately drive improved ROI on their benefits investments.

Create Awareness with Employee Communications

It’s critical when launching a new health care transparency service (or introducing it to a new hire) that employees understand what it is and why it’s valuable. In other words, what do employees get from using this service? Creative, engaging communications that reach different employee demographics can do just that.
 
Research shows that most HR departments are still relying largely on mass emails to communicate with staff. While a one-and-done email will alert the company that a new transparency service is up and running, it won’t demonstrate its capabilities or the cost-saving potential of using it.
 
Some companies choose to use video and other visuals to illustrate specific cost-saving examples, such as the anticipated cost of an MRI in a specific city from three different providers. By seeing quality and cost information presented side-by-side, or cost variance between providers, employees start to understand how they could use that transparency tool for their own health care shopping needs.

Provide Multichannel Access

Once employees understand what transparency services are and how they work, HR should ensure employees can access the service when and where they need it. For companies that have them, employee portals are a great central location for transparency service access. There, HR can add information about the service, post a FAQ document or display examples of the cost savings generated for employees. Adding a “live” support option such as a toll-free phone number or web-chat option also create new ways by which employees access the information they need.
 
Just as HR would tailor communications to different employee demographics, thinking about access in respect to different subgroups is another worthwhile exercise. Millennial employees, for instance, who are more comfortable using technology might prefer using transparency services on a mobile app. While there won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach, multichannel access should be the ultimate goal for any company offering a transparency service.

Make the Offering Specific to Individuals

Thirdly, showing individual employees how a transparency service benefits them specifically will help increase its utilization. That can be approached in a few ways.
 
Organizations may consider setting up “office hours” when employees can come in to get extra support as to how to use the service. Another approach is to host one-on-one meetings between employees and HR reps– either in person, by telephone or video chat – to review specific policies, voluntary benefits options and the service itself. A junior employee just coming off their parents’ insurance plan would likely need an explanation of basic information along with demos of the service, whereas a mid-level manager would want to know how dependent family members on their plan could use the service too.
 
Some companies bring in third-party benefits experts to host these meetings and address questions an employee might not feel comfortable discussing with an HR professional they see every day in the office. Employees have come to expect personalization in their everyday lives, so HR should anticipate that demand for transparency services too.
 
Smart health care shopping may be an employee’s responsibility, but it starts with knowing where to look for information to make the best choices – and that’s something employers can help with. Making transparency resources available is a great first step. Making them truly valuable depends on a company’s ability to generate awareness of them, ensure easy access to information and personalize the conversation so employees understand how to use the resource in ways that will best benefit themselves and their families.