Benefits Management

Why Go It Alone?

Benefits management has a lot of moving parts: administration, communication, compliance and financials, to name just a few. We understand each of those parts as well as we understand the importance of a highly personal, client-focused approach to helping you succeed. That approach includes:

Consulting

We can’t advocate for you if we don’t know you. Right out of the gate, we work with you to understand your company’s culture, your employees’ needs and whether the employee benefits programs you offer them are really meeting those needs. Then we talk challenges — the ones you have now and the ones on their way.

From plan selection, implementation and management to making sure your employees know how to make the most of what you’re offering, you’ll get personalized support every step of the way. Every quarter, we’ll gather data that helps identify the trends affecting your current yearly plan. Post renewal, we’ll sit down with your HR staff to review plan performance for the recently concluded year. Then we'll create a comprehensive calendar and timeline that outlines the key planning initiatives, deadlines and individual responsibilities that can help ensure success for you and your employees. They include:

• Plan design
• Contribution strategies
• Engagement and wellness strategies
• Communication with employees
• Open enrollment
• Statutory requirements
• Strategic and legislative changes
• Risk management marketing
• Rx Solutions

Data Analytics

Feel like benefits management is one big guessing game? You need the right data — and a partner that can turn it into an invaluable financial strategy. We eat, sleep and breathe the data we collect directly from your carriers and you. But as much as we love numbers – and we really, really do – they don’t tell your whole story. That’s why we take the time to talk with you about your culture, pain points and business objectives.

Our in-house actuaries and analytics specialists aggregate, analyze and benchmark all of the information, creating a new level of transparency and identifying cost drivers. The comprehensive, performance-based reporting we offer lays out the trends, risks and gaps, and pinpoints opportunities for the coming plan year. The result? An easy way for you to make educated plan decisions and build sound benefits strategies on an ongoing basis. Our extensive underwriting, data warehousing and medical claims experience are just the tip of our offerings. Here are a few of the actuarial and financial management services you have access to:

• Rate equivalent development
• Incurred But Not Reported (IBNR) reserve analysis
• Plan design modeling
• Claims analytics (financial and clinical)
• Rx testing
• Financial forecasting/budgeting
• Employee contributions (e.g., by tier and wellness offering)
• Internal underwriting and pre-renewal calculations
• Budget analysis and projections
• M&A due diligence financial implications
• ACA valuation
• Alternative funding analysis (e.g., self-funding, fully insured and combination)
• Stop-loss simulation and alternative analysis
• Regular meetings to go over claims experiences, exposure changes and administrative matters
• Detailed monthly, quarterly and year-end plan performance reports

Health Management

How can you reduce health care costs and increase productivity at the same time? One way is with employee wellness programs. We’ll connect you with the leading health and wellness service providers. We hold them accountable for giving you the best programs, tools and resources that allow you to take the five key steps a successful wellness program demands:

• Actively engage employees
• Focus on preventing claims
• Educate and motivate employees to make healthy choices and avoid risks
• Demonstrate measurable results that impact claims costs
• Closely monitor and report results on a regular basis

Compliance

What’s the most confusing, overwhelming and frustrating part of employee benefits? If you said “health care reform,” you’re not alone. Keeping pace with change isn’t optional, so we make it as easy as possible by offering proactive compliance resources:

• A top compliance team: A dedicated team of compliance professionals follows, aggregates and disseminates the information you don’t want to be without.
• Compliance Corner: This compliance-focused newsletter arrives in your inbox whenever new legislation passes at the state or federal level.
• Web portal: Our industry-leading, Web-based compliance portal helps you adhere to numerous federal health and welfare plan rules, and provides model notices you need to send out.
• Research team: These industry experts prepare annual industry reports, white papers, benchmarking studies, newsletters and other materials that will help you stay compliant and competitive.
• Seminars and webinars: Complex compliance topics made understandable. Need one-on-one compliance training? We offer that, too.

Communication

You’ve got a great plan in place. Now what? To see company success and workplace satisfaction, your employees have to understand the benefits. There’s a lot of information to share, and we’ll help you share it in a way that helps secure employee buy-in and foster company loyalty. We design communications, materials and strategies that:

• Are concise yet informative
• Explain why and how your plan benefits your employees
• Champions your plan and your company
• Underscores your commitment to your employee
• Aligns with your overall benefits strategy