Healthcare And Your Bottom Line: Balancing Budgets And Employee Needs

Healthcare plays an enormous role in a company’s success. New employees can be won or lost on the benefits offered by a potential employer. The population health of a company can be affected greatly by the healthcare options available to the workforce. The right healthcare model can improve health throughout the organization in addition to cost savings, engagement, and satisfaction ratings.

Healthcare is key for a thriving company

We’ve previously discussed how healthcare is a key contributing factor when you want to:

•  Be a destination employer,
•  Reduce costs, and
• Improve employee health.

Employers must offer the right healthcare options to take advantage of the benefits. Any viable option should include a proven model to improve health while driving down costs and offering the services employees need, when they need them.

Read Next: How To Expand Employee Benefits While Keeping Costs Under Control

That’s where advanced primary care (APC) comes in. APC is what healthcare should be, a methodology that stands apart from the current sick-care system by flipping it upside-down and focusing on what’s important: time and understanding. Advanced primary care does the following:

• Focuses on time-rich appointments, empathetic listening, and whole patient care
• Delivers most consultation, diagnosis, testing, and treatment at the primary care level
• Minimizes the need for specialist referrals
• Provides care coordination when a referral is necessary, ensuring follow up and incorporation of any additional treatment or medication into the care plan
• Uses an advanced analytics platform to help providers identify health risks and options for addressing them
• Includes health coaching for further support and guidance at every step of behavior change

Balancing resources to reduce costs

Advanced primary care, properly implemented, leads to spending less on healthcare overall. Employers can more easily balance available budget with the needs of their workforce, without sacrificing on quality and depth of care.

As health throughout the population improves, unmanaged claims decrease, along with expensive specialist care, trips to the emergency room, hospital stays, and absenteeism.

APC helps to optimize the way your employees access care and engage with their own health in every aspect of their lives. The care and guidance they receive from a dedicated primary care team and embedded health coaches helps to create a robust culture of health at work. Healthier employees are more satisfied and productive, which further benefits the bottom line.

Take the City of Kirkland, for example:

In 2015, to get their employees more engaged in their health and to save money, the City partnered with us to open a near-site care center that would serve employees and their families, providing the majority of healthcare that they’d need at a primary care level.

This included planned care, unplanned care, occupational health, disease management, and health coaching. Within a year, the results were impressive:

• $1.6 million gross savings
• $137.20 lower costs PMPM
• 23% increase in primary care engagement
• 91% ROI
• 17% reduction in claims volume

In fact, by switching from an expensive insurance plan to an advanced primary care model with a near-site care clinic, the City saved enough money in the first year to pay for the care center, several wellness initiatives, and a $500 dividend to all employees.

The right type of care, delivered effectively, can go a long way toward helping companies keep their employees healthy while saving on total healthcare costs. Advanced primary care makes it easier to improve outcomes, productivity, and engagement that drives down claims, hospital stays, and staff coverage.