Three Crucial Questions
In planning and designing group health benefits, Plante & Moran abides by three guiding principles, expressed as questions:
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Are they efficient?
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Are they understood by the employees?
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Are they appreciated?
If a benefit — long-term disability insurance, for example — is under appreciated, you need to ask whether or not it’s a benefit you should provide. After all, you could take that money and use it to supplement health care costs, which are better understood and more appreciated. Questions to consider when assessing your group health benefits include:
What's your insurance agent doing for you?
You already pay your agent a healthy commission. What services are you getting in return? Has he or she looked into wellness programs or disease management programs for you?
Are your employees engaged in assessing health risks?
Plante & Moran can help you implement creative techniques to provide employees with behavioral and economic incentives for improving their health and reducing health care costs.
Do you need to reassess your current plan?
We can review your plan to determine if design options can help contain and reduce costs or, better yet, provide enhanced benefits at no additional cost. Such reviews include modeling the effects of:
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Different levels of insurance co-payments and deductibles.
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Benefit selection.
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Self-insurance of all or a portion of health care benefits.
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Vendor selection.
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Cafeteria plan utilization implementation.
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Aggregate claims analysis.
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Cost comparability.
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