Employers fail health IQ checkup
Spokane employers have a poor under- standing of the health benefits they offer workers, and how insurance can pay off as an investment in morale and productivity, according to a recent survey.
Many employers, says survey sponsor Dan Johnson, view health benefits only as a necessary component of a compensation package that will attract and retain good workers.
They blame insurers for unceasing increases in premiums, with little thought as to how misuse of benefits contributes to those costs. Some buy plans that do not suit their businesses.
All the while, premiums increase at double-digit rates year after year.
The “Spokane Employee Benefit Survey 2004” was conducted in the spring. Results were tabulated this summer. They show a sorry lack of knowledge about health benefits, indifference to value and wide belief malpractice premiums drive health care expenditures.
Johnson says the survey was drafted to help him formulate a business plan for his business, CDJ Consulting Inc., which counsels employers on benefits, and whether they should self-insure.
Of the 550 businesses contacted for the survey, 221 participated. The sample was random, but the breakdown by size of those who responded closely matched the profile for all businesses in Washington. Half the sample had fewer than 20 employees, 16 percent had more than 100, with the rest scattered somewhere in between.
John says the workers hired to do the survey tried to talk to the head of human resources or, in the case of smaller companies, the owner or manager. Though pleased with the response rate, he says he was appalled by how few knew the specifics of the benefits they offered.
“They didn’t know, and they didn’t know where to find it,” Johnson says. “The shocking thing was, these are the decision-makers.’
Less than half were concerned that their benefits show value, or a return on the investment made to purchase them. Employers just pay the bills and don’t look at the factors that are driving annual increases.
Many think the best way to control expenses is to shift more costs to workers, by increasing copayments, for example, Johnson says. Many jettison coverage of mental health, when those maladies may be a major cause of poor employee morale. He says cost shifts can backfire later, when workers who put off a doctor visit ends up undergoing expensive treatments for problems that might have been cured inexpensively if they had been detected early.
Dr. Norm Charney, executive director of the Inland Northwest Coalition on Health, says Johnson’s survey contains good information.
“I think it’s a good start in terms of outlining what’s going on in the area,” he says.
The coalition’s 47 members include some of the area’s largest companies.
Charney attributes some employer cynicism toward efforts to use health benefits as a tool for improving worker productivity to overinflated expectations for other bromides, like the wellness movement.
Charney says the 3-year-old coalition hopes to show members how to be better consumers of medical benefits, so they can pass that information on to their employees. A seminar last week addressed nutrition. The next topic is depression.
Eventually, Charney says, he would like the coalition to be able to negotiate as a group for better health benefits, as coalitions in other areas already do.
“I think there’s a huge potential for education,” says Johnson, who started in the medical benefits field in 1992 with Qual Med.
He says he hopes to repeat the survey at least yearly, and preferably quarterly, expanding the component that tests sentiment about the Spokane-area economy. His findings there were somewhat more optimistic, but just somewhat.
Of employers who offer benefits, 62 percent say Spokane’s economy is improving. Fewer were optimistic about the state and national economies. Other employers had a higher assessment of the national economy.
Fewer than half expected to make a major purchase, or were hiring new workers.