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Last updated: 21 July 2010
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Read Mercer health & benefits articles of specific interest to Benefits Professionals.
2010 Health and benefits articles
Sudden Impact - Health reform legislation challenges HR providers to manage change and cost HRO Today - June, 2010
Although many aspects of the new health reform legislation remain to be clarified, employers need to be planning now for implementation of new regulations. Mercer's Tracy Watts and Kelly Traw provide insights into what employers should be considering, and how they can combat rising costs.
How Health-Care-Claims Advocacy Can Improve Productivity Workspan, the magazine of WorldatWork - June 2010
Resolving health claims can be a daunting and time-consuming process. Offering access to a health-care-claims advocacy service is a relatively small investment that can pay off significantly in terms of keeping employees engaged and adding further perceived value to their total rewards packages.
A Healthcare Communications Game Plan Human Resource Executive Online - May 10, 2010
HR leadership must make informed decisions about when and how to communicate with employees about the law's impact on their group-health-plan coverage. But staying silent on the issue should not be an option.
Better U.S. Health Care at Lower Cost Reprinted with permission from ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Copyright by The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX.
In the United States, the amount of money spent on health care by all sources, including government, private employers, and individuals, is approximately $7,500 a year per person. In other advanced industrial nations, such as Germany, the bill is roughly one-third less. Yet more spending doesn't translate to higher scores on health care quality measures or greater user satisfaction. This article provides insights into how that picture can be changed.
Containing Health-care costs in Asia Pacific during the downturn WorldatWork Journal - First Quarter 2010
Rosaline Chow Koo, leader of Mercer's Health & Benefits business in Asia Pacific, has published an important article in the latest edition of WorldatWork Journal.
The article notes that health insurance premiums in Asia are likely to double in the next five years due to a number of familiar drivers--an aging population, increase in chronic disease driven by lifestyle changes, expensive new drugs and medical technologies, government health reform shifting costs to the private sector, and rising demand and expectations from Asia's expanding middle class. The article describes the need to control employee claims costs as part of an integrated health-care cost containment program that includes such innovations as flex benefits.
Health Care Consumerism: Incentives, Behavior Change and Uncertainties Benefits Quarterly - First Quarter 2010 Employers affected by the recession’s 2009 peak must press for cost containment in 2010, especially in health care benefits. Encouraging employee consumerism — through consumer-directed health plans and other strategies — can be enhanced by incentives, but federal efforts at health care reform add some element of uncertainty to the consumer-directed solution. This article provides some lessons to guide the course of action for employers considering implementing a consumerist approach to improve employee health and control the cost trend.
Human Resource Executive Online - 1 Jan. 2010
Holding down healthcare costs by intensifying efforts to change employee behavior requires HR leaders to articulate what's driving cost, what the opportunities are for improvement, what needs to change and how success will be measured. Here are some of the important elements of a successful employee-engagement approach.
2009 Health and benefits articles
Give Employers the Means to Measure Physician Performance Workforce Management Online (free registration required) - Dec. 2009
What’s missing in the current health care debate is stronger employer lobbying to give employers and consumers access to the Medicare billing database for public comparisons of individual physician performance. Employers could use it to more confidently create incentives to steer employees to the best doctors.
Human Resource Executive Online - Oct. 2009
Results from Mercer's annual employer survey reveal how the stress of the downturn is affecting costs and options in employee healthcare
Strategies for the Passing Storm Workspan - Sept. 2009
This article discusses key survey findings regarding how businesses have been dealing with the current economic environment, and suggests four strategic themes that can ensure long-term success.
Employers Urge a Cautious Pace With Health Care Legislation Workforce Management Online (free registration is required) - Aug. 2009
Employers are in favor of phasing in health care reform by implementing high-priority elements first and testing whether savings assumptions are correct.
Health Plan Dependent Eligibility Audits Are Crucial for Cost Savings Workforce Management Online (free registration is required) - June 2009
New York Times, Opinion page - June 2009
Human Resource Executive Online - May 2009
Although more organizations are turning to consumer-directed health plans to keep healthcare costs low, selling employees on the plans can be a challenge. An expert offers some successful strategies.
2008 Health and benefits articles
Consumerism and Wellness: Rising Tide, Falling Cost Benefits Quarterly, Second Quarter 2008
Annual employer-sponsored health plan cost increases have been slowing incrementally due to slowing health care utilization - a phenomenon very likely tied to the proliferation of health management activities, wellness programs and other consumerism strategies. This article describes the sharp rise in recent years of consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and explains what developments must happen for genuine consumer-directed health care to realize its full potential. These developments include gathering transparent health care information, increasing consumer demand for that information and creating truly intuitive data solutions that allow consumers to easily access information in order to make better health care decisions.
2007 Health and benefits articles
Consumerism in Health Care: A Reality Check Workforce Management, August 2007
The rise of consumerist strategies in providing employee health care is a genuine trend, but is your organization’s consumer-directed health plan a genuine effort on the part of all stakeholders? It’s time to get real about fulfilling the promise of consumerism.
Benefits & Compensation International, July/August 2007
A report on Multinational Pooling and Captives by Mercer's consultant, Jeremy Hill.
Health Affairs, July 10, 2007
A provider organization attempts to do what purchasers, including Medicare, all exhort: improve care delivery while reducing costs.
Employee Benefit News, June 1, 2007
In the private and public arenas, there is a growing, powerful will to achieve transparency in health care pricing and quality. Heeding last summer's directive from President Bush, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt launched last year a "four cornerstones" initiative to increase pricing transparency, improve quality transparency, encourage health information technology standards and create positive incentives for health care quality and efficiency. Although the initiative is supported by many of the nation's large employers, when it comes to delivering transparency to their employees, employers say that doctors and hospitals are moving too slowly to suit them.
European benefit solutions – are we nearly there? PMI News, April 2007
Multinational companies have long been seeking to reduce the cost and administration of their pensions and other risk benefits through pan-European arrangements. Recent EU Directives pave the way for such arrangements, and a range of options are now open to companies, including asset pooling, risk pooling, full pan-European pension funds and outsourcing. Mercer's Jeremy Hill and Tim Burggraaf explore each of these approaches. A version of this article was published in PMI News in April 2007.
Personal Responsibility in Health Benefits: Looking Backward, Looking Forward Benefits Quarterly, Second Quarter 2007
Consumerism and care management continue to make inroads as costcontainment strategies for employers, as well as for employees who have endured the steady rise in benefit cost-shifting. The latest statistics and trends point the way to a new era of personal responsibility in health benefits. In this article, Mercer's Alexander Domaszewicz describes these health care consumerism trends.
Foundations of Health Care Consumerism Kiplinger Business Resource Center, March 2007
In the world of today's health care, the term "consumerism" is being used in many contexts and with many meanings. However, the term can best be defined as "a model of shared responsibility for health and cost management among all stakeholders." The stakeholders who share this responsibility are a) the health care provider; b) the employee; c) the employer; and d) the health plan. The following describes the primary responsibilities that must be assumed by each stakeholder group to achieve a successful model of consumerism.
Will the Surgical World Become Flat? Health Affairs, January, 2007
Americans' seeking cheaper surgical procedures abroad will provide only modest relief from our spreading affordability problems.
2006 Health and benefits articles
Experts share their CDH predictions for 2007; expect continued growth, enhanced consumerism Consumer Driven Healthcare, December 2006
CDH seems to have moved from the mad rush of the infatuation stage into the more measured growth of a marriage.
America's New Refugees - Seeking Affordable Surgery Offshore New England Journal of Medicine, October 19, 2006
The mainstream media have begun to highlight the plight of some new refugees: seriously ill Americans who receive treatment at advanced private hospitals in low-income countries. These patients are not "medical tourists" seeking low-cost aesthetic enhancement. They are middle-income Americans evading impoverishment by expensive, medically necessary operations, as health care services are increasingly included in international economic trade.
Rewards For Healthy Lifestyles Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA), October 9, 2006
By sponsoring healthy lifestyle contests and campaigns, employers can encourage healthy behavior among employees, according to this report from Mercer's Steven Noeldner. Dr. Noeldner discusses Mercer Health & Benefits' model for effective behavior change which includes three phases: awareness-commitment, skill building, and maintenance.
American Journal of Health Promotion, July/August 2006
In this article, Mercer's Seth Serxner, Kristin Baker, and Daniel Gold provide guidelines for evaluating the economic return from health management programs. They review the current literature on ROI and cost savings and provide recommendations for applying the guidelines to major categories of health management programs.
Best Practices for an Integrated Population Health Management (PHM) Program American Journal of Health Promotion, May/June 2006
An integrated population health management program covers the full continuum of care, shares data among all programs, and provides a coordinated experience to the user. Communication and change management strategy are essential to the success of an integrated PHM program. Mercer's Seth Serxner, Steven Noeldner, and Daniel Gold also describe how PHM impacts benefit design and business strategy.
Consumerism's Sea Change: How It Will Affect Your Company in the Coming Years Benefits Quarterly, Second Quarter 2006
Over the next five years, most employers plan to focus on consumerism and care management strategies, according Mercer's Sander Domaszewicz. He identifies 10 ways consumerism will affect employers over the next decade. For example, consumer-driven health will help employers improve attraction and retention, simplify benefits administration by consolidating multiple benefit programs, and create better educated consumers.
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