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Episode 6 – Benefits Accelerator, Communicating with Employees

Congratulations to episode six’s gift card giveaway winner, Pam Stephenson of Ashley Ward.

Marcas Miles (0:00) 

Hello, and welcome to the Employers Health HR Benecast, your monthly source for clarity on health benefit trends and strategies. This is your host, Marcus Miles, Senior Director Marketing Communication at Employers Health, and a different voice for the podcast. I am taking the reins from Mike Stull, who previously had recorded the podcast and had done a great job, but we’re going to switch things up just a little bit and even have a different format moving forward. 

I’ll be inviting various guests, both staff and talking to some of our members or folks at our member companies that, you know, can share a variety of topics that are important and relevant to you, our listeners. So, we understand that it’s great to hear from peers, so I’m going to do that as much as possible.  

My first guest today, though, we have the pleasure of hearing from Chris Goff, CEO and General Counsel at Employer’s Health, and that will be just a little bit later here in the podcast. 

To start this month’s podcast, I would like to remind you to listen for the keyword that we highlight in each episode. Each month, a lucky listener will be eligible to win a $50 Visa gift card simply by submitting the keyword that you hear in the podcast. So, it’s pretty simple, and I’ll give you that code word a little bit later so that you can be entered into the drawing for this particular show. So, be sure to listen closely.  

We’ll also be answering a question from one of our listeners. We encourage you to submit those, and so you’ll be hearing about that a little bit later. 

I want to share just a few updates with you before we hear from Chris. So, we recently moved into our new building in Canton. You may have read in the past that we were in construction, building a new headquarters to accommodate our growing staff. 

It’s just about a half a mile down the road from where we were located previously, so if you know where that is, just about a half a mile west of that office, and we would love to have you stop by and see us. So, if you’re in the area, please do that, but we’ll also be hosting an official open house later this summer, so be sure and watch for details with that.  

In keeping with our continued growth, we recently welcomed two more new associates to the team. 

Taylor Nervo and Eric Chen are now part of our account management team. This team in particular has grown immensely over the last couple of years and is well positioned to service our valuable member organizations, so very much an important aspect of what we do to serve you here.  

Recently, we hosted our 18th annual Spring Benefits Conference that took place in May. 

You may have attended that, but if not, we enjoyed a great turnout of attendees for many informative presentations by, of course, an array of industry experts. Of note was our featured speaker, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. We were really, really happy to have Donna with us. 

She was engaging and thorough, very thought-provoking as she shared her years of wisdom and insight into how the government operates, especially around healthcare, business, and policy. And just a shout-out to fellow team member, Sam Shalala, who invited Donna, who happens to be his cousin. So that was a great connection for us, and we’re grateful to Sam for reaching out and facilitating that for us. 

And now, I would like to welcome my first guest. So I have the pleasure of being joined by Chris Goff. Welcome, Chris. 

Chris Goff (3:49) 

Thank you.  

Marcas Miles (3:50) 

Chris, for those of you who don’t know, is the CEO and General Counsel at Employers Health and has been with the organization now, what, 20?  

Chris Goff (3:58) 

22 years.  

Marcas Miles (3:59) 

22 years. 

So quite some time. He has lots of experience working in the employer space or close to the employee benefit space. So I appreciate you taking the time to join me here today. 

You’ve been very busy leading the development and ultimate move into our new headquarters in Canton just last week. So how do you feel about finally being settled, or how are you feeling abou

Chris Goff (4:21) 

Well, I often joke with people that my part-time job was construction superintendent for the last year. So I’m glad to have that job behind me. 

Marcas Miles (4:31) 

Right, right. So we’ll be hosting an open house later this summer, is that right?  

Chris Goff (4:35) 

That’s right. August 24th. 

Marcas Miles (4:36) 

Okay. From 5.30 to 7.30 p.m. So for those of you listening, keep an eye out for an official invitation and an opportunity to RSVP for us. Chris has seen a lot of changes in the delivery of employee benefits in his nearly, or more, three decades working closely with this space. 

Chris, before we really get into the meat of our conversation, what has changed the most in your opinion or from your perspective?  

Chris Goff (5:03) 

So the biggest change is probably industry consolidation. And it’s not just one particular type of industry in the marketplace. It’s managed care consolidation, hospital consolidation, PBM consolidation, and drug manufacturers. 

So if you think back to when I started in the business, there were 70-plus Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. For example, in Ohio, we once had two Blue Shield plans and seven Blue Cross plans. So it’s quite a lot of consolidation on the managed care side. And we’re down to three big PBMs now and a host of mid-size PBMs. And then when you look at hospitals, we’ll take Ohio for example, particularly in the Cleveland market. It’s a two-hospital system town as are most large cities. 

So that’s where I’ve seen the most change.  

Marcas Miles (6:15) 

We hear, all of us hear from our members on a regular basis about things changing all the time, whether it’s health care reform or vendor changes and keeping up with that. Has anything been constant over time, whether it’s a challenge or something that’s a positive over time that is kind of a hallmark of delivering employee benefits?  

Chris Goff (6:36) 

It’s not a positive, it’s a negative, unfortunately. 

And that is cost increases. So when I think back to when I first got in the business, it was not uncommon to see employers getting 20% increases in their self-insured spend. We’re still seeing huge increases in costs year over year. 

The out-of-pocket costs that are borne by employees now are much larger than they were 30 years ago.  

Marcas Miles (7:12) 

I’m biased probably in this next question because I think we provide a lot of solutions or resources or opportunities for our members. But is there anything that you’re seeing that’s on the horizon that’s a good opportunity for those that are responsible for benefits to either make an impact or bring value to their organizations that maybe they haven’t?  

Chris Goff (7:33) 

So there is a huge divide between the large consultancies and the mid-sized consultancies. And we fill a nice niche with our consulting arm, which is called Employers Health Solutions, which if our members are going to the Employers Health website, you’re not going to see any of that information because it’s a separate site. It’s EmployersHealthSolutions.com. But we’ve done a number of projects over the years for very large employers as well as smaller self-insured employers.  

Marcas Miles (8:10) 

I always use an example of most employers working with a consultant. And when you want to hire a new consultant, it’s probably difficult to use your consultant, right, to pick a new one.  

Chris Goff (8:21) 

But that’s another niche we fill. So employers will use us to draft the bid specs for a consultancy arrangement. And we will run the RFP and help the employer choose a consultant.  

Marcas Miles (8:36) 

Right, right. Yeah, I like that. 

I like that example. So all that being said, it’s a good setup to talk about why you’re here today, to talk about a unique new opportunity that Employers Health members have in order to take a new approach in the delivery of employee benefits. We’re calling it Benefits Accelerator. 

So what is Benefits Accelerator?  

Chris Goff (8:58) 

Well, let me first state what it is not. It is not a private exchange. So I want to get that on the table first and foremost. 

We have followed private exchanges from their inception and we have found that many employers who were early adopters have now come back to traditional offerings because the private exchange promises were not delivered. So Benefits Accelerator is, it’s also not a product. It’s a strategy. 

Some of the things that we’ve learned over the years are that benefit staffs are much leaner and they don’t have the capacity to manage multiple vendors. So Benefits Accelerator is a way to reduce the burden on an employer. So the employer only has to deal with one organization and that’s Employers Health. 

So the account manager from Employers Health coordinates the medical plan, the dental plan, the vision plan, pharmacy benefits, life, LTD, any other benefits such as voluntary life, voluntary disability. All of those are coordinated by the Employers Health account manager. So we have found some preferred vendors that have all agreed to play nicely in the sandbox. So that’s part of the arrangement, part of the benefit.  

The other is when it comes to the employer’s plan participants, so employees, spouses, dependents, retirees, they have one number to call. So it’s a one-member service number for the employees and dependents. 

It’s one account manager to call for the employer. So what we’ve done is we’ve assembled four or five key vendors. Optum is the key vendor for this solution because it’s the hub. 

So this is a hub concept where employees and covered dependents call the hub. So they’re calling Optum for everything. The other vendors that we have contracted with to execute this strategy are UnitedHealthcare and Unum. 

So we’re using UnitedHealthcare as the preferred medical plan. Unum as the preferred disability and voluntary benefits provider. And then we can mix and match different dental, vision carriers, as well as other carrier vendors. 

So Unum carriers such as PBMs, it can be OptumRx, it can be CVS Health.  

Marcas Miles (11:55) 

Right. So, there’s some flexibility there. 

Chris Goff (11:57) 

The key difference between this versus a private exchange is this is flexible. You can switch vendors. You can continue to operate your own strategy. 

It’s just that we take the vendor management off the table and let the employer focus on benefits strategy rather than day-to-day operations.  

Marcas Miles (12:21) 

And so, I know that it sometimes seems overwhelming to make a vendor switch, but when you’re working with us, we really can help do a lot of the lift on that. Is that right?  

Chris Goff (12:33) 

That’s right. 

And the other vendor that I didn’t mention is a Benadmin system. So that’s central to Benefits Accelerator. And for Benefits Accelerator, the preferred Benadmin system is Benefit Express. 

So you’ve got the medical carrier, the disability carrier, health management or wellness is a key component, benefits administration, and then pharmacy benefits management. One other component that will come shortly is wealth management. So with Optum being the hub, Optum has its own bank. 

So for HSA, HRA, and FSA accounts, that can be provided by Optum Bank shortly and probably within the next year, we’ll actually have 401k as a piece of the wealth management proponent in Benefits Accelerator.  

Marcas Miles (13:36) 

Nice. So who should be considering an option like this? Is there a right target or a right size or what in your opinion, who?  

Chris Goff (13:45) 

So I would say at a minimum, employers with 2,000 or more employees. 

This was really designed for large to mid-sized employers. And I think it’s important to note that we’re not just probably private sector employers because this is very difficult to respond in a public bid request because what we typically do is sit down with the employer to find out what are all the pieces that you want included in Benefits Accelerator. Some may want to keep their PBM. 

Some may want to keep their disability carrier. So that’s why I say a private sector employer is probably best suited for this. But with a lot of pre-work with a public employer prior to drafting bid specs, we can certainly provide this option to a public employer as well. 

Marcas Miles (14:52) 

And I know that you and some others on our team have done a lot of work in planning and putting this together with Optum. And they seem to be a very knowledgeable partner and have some historical background expertise to bring to the table, I think, which also could probably provide some peace of mind to those considering an option like this. Absolutely. 

Optum is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, just like UnitedHealthcare is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. But for people listening, to put Optum in perspective, if you just looked at Optum alone, it’s bigger than Aetna. So, it’s a very large organization with a lot of resources. 

Marcas Miles (15:34) 

Okay, great. Well, thanks for the information. I guess the last question would be, what are next steps? What should someone listening interested do? What’s the next step?  

Chris Goff (15:43) 

So next steps would be working with your account manager to identify your interest in Benefits Accelerator, because this is not a quick solution to bring to the table. 

It takes about six to nine months to develop the strategy. And oftentimes, if the preferred vendors are not used, it can take even longer. So we would want to talk with employers any time between now and this time next year for a 1-1-19 effective date. 

Marcas Miles (16:24) 

Right. And I know that you appreciate the opportunity to talk about it, so I know that you would be willing to meet and answer questions.  

Chris Goff (16:30) 

Absolutely.  

Marcas Miles (16:31) 

So that’s great. 

All right, Chris, well, thank you. I appreciate the time that you spent with us today.  

Chris Goff (16:36) 

Thank you, Marcus. 

Marcas Miles (16:37) 

Next, we will address a question from one of our listeners. Nathan would like to know if there is a method to find balance between inundating members with too many emails while providing necessary and helpful information on how to use their benefits most effectively. And this is a topic particularly that I have done a couple of roundtables and some information sharing on in the past. 

And there are a number of ways to provide information, but first and foremost, you want to communicate to your members where they are or how they traditionally get information from you. And if you don’t know the best way or their preferred way of receiving information, ask them. I’m very much an advocate of serving and just simply asking if we want to know how to best do something, let’s ask the people that we want to communicate to. 

If, for example, you have folks that work in the field that don’t have access to a computer or ready access to a computer, send them printed mail. I know a lot of companies have gone away from printing communications, but if you don’t have the engagement that you want, perhaps do that for a select population.  

Another idea is to create a mobile channel. We have a vendor that creates really cost-effective mobile channels that are really easy to use and could be put on a smartphone. We know that pretty much everyone has a smartphone in their pocket. And then additionally, if you have a large spread-out organization, consider setting up a communications portal either on your intranet or even on your benefits website. 

It’s really not that imperative that anything be protected inside a firewall. The information that you want to share is likely not needing to be protected or proprietary, so set it up where it’s easily accessible. Or you could even do a closed group on social media, whether it be Facebook or free platforms like that, so that anyone who needs information does have access to that. 

Again, we encourage you to submit your questions regarding HR, benefits, and the value of membership in an employer-led coalition. You can do so by completing the field on the landing page or clicking the link titled Submit Your Questions Here. As simple as that. 

And be sure to tune in next month to hear the answers to the questions that you submit. And now, it’s time for Employer’s Health News and what’s happening or some upcoming events. We’re always committed to providing learning and networking opportunities to our members and you can join us at some of the following. 

(19:16) 

On June 29th, in our Columbus Market, we’ll be hosting our Member Roundtable. That will be over lunch from 12 until 1, so June 29th. And the location is Matt DeMiller’s Tavern in Dublin. 

And then back by popular demand on August 30th, also in Columbus, is our Employer Health and Wealth Workshop. Now we hosted this for the first time last year and again, it was well attended, and we got some really great feedback. It will be held this year at the Hilton Columbus Polaris. And you can register for this and any of our events and find out more information on our website, employershealthco.com.  

And don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date on all upcoming Employers Health events. And that’s how you can really see and be given the latest and greatest information and see that in your news feed. Please be sure to submit your questions so that we can answer them in upcoming editions of this Benecast. 

Also, if you’d like to be considered for the $50 Visa gift card, the code word is “Accelerate.” That’s right, it’s “Accelerate.” Please submit that along with your name and email address using the link on the landing page. 

That will conclude this month’s show. Thank you again for taking the time to listen, but more importantly, thank you for your continued membership and interest in Employer’s Health. And don’t forget, please submit your questions so that I can answer those in an upcoming edition of our podcast. 

In this podcast

Christopher Goff, J.D., M.A.

Employers Health | Chairman, President and CEO

In his role as chairman, president and CEO of Employers Health, Chris works with the board of directors to chart the organization’s overall strategy.

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Marcas Miles

Employers Health | Vice President, Industry Relations

Marcas Miles serves as vice president, industry relations at Employers Health, where he oversees efforts to strengthen connections with clients, partners and stakeholders.

Read More

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