‘LESS EXPENSIVE’ Shouldn’t be the Goal for Your Employee Health Plan 

“Less expensive” is like “less moldy.” What we really want from our food is freshness. These are two fundamentally different things. With healthcare, what should the goal be, then? Well, how about: More people want to work for you because of it and your competitors can’t poach them away. 

While some companies still cling to the dream of less expensive health insurance, there are leaders who have figured out the secret. They know how to create meaningful access to healthcare — and this always includes considerations for affordability and cost. But it also always considers the special needs of a workforce with language, transportation, childcare, time availability, getting off work, etc.

What I really like about meaningful access and affordability as a starting place for every small businesses’ health plan is, it is appreciated right away by almost all employees. And immediate usability is key to turning an employer’s healthcare cost into a measurable ROI.

Many companies have become successful making healthcare work for both low- and high-wage earners. It’s because they think about the problem a little differently. While the thinking in the past has centered on healthcare consumerism, or wellness or even lowering expense, the key focus is now on creating “meaningful access” for everyone in the company — starting with the lowest wage earners and then building from there to include everyone. Businesses which follow that strategy then create massive hiring and retention leverage for themselves. To them, it’s just obvious that affordability is a crucial part of meaningful access to healthcare. They know it’s an expensive mistake to let less expensive insurance drive their health plans.

Dr. David Berg is the president and co-founder of Redirect Health, a platform that helps people and their employers work together to bring meaningful access to easy and truly affordable healthcare to everyone in their company.

Two-thirds of American workers can’t afford to buy healthcare on their own without employer help, putting greater pressure on companies’ turnover, recruiting and workers’ compensation costs. Redirect Health is a national healthcare company that helps companies solve this problem.