Webcast Recap: Healthcare Benefits Trends to Watch in 2017

The only constant in the healthcare benefits environment is change. As 2017 marks a “changing of the guard” in the political world, a year in which technology is improving, and a year in which you will need to compete aggressively for the best talent; your organization must be able to adapt, evolve, and provide benefits that meet your employees’ unique needs.

In Wednesday’s article, we took a deeper look at the challenges and opportunities that other employer groups are facing in offering healthcare benefits as we looked into the results of our 2017 Healthcare Benefits Trends Benchmark Study, which was given to all attendees of our webcast and provided many insights from nearly 300 benefits professionals at organizations of all sizes.

Trends and Talking Points: 2017 Healthcare Benefits to Watch Webcast

The Healthcare Benefits Trends to Watch in 2017 Webcast brought together three of the leading voices in the community to present their insights on our survey, as well as offering strategies and predictions for the year ahead.

Featuring Tiffany Wirth, Executive Director of the Healthcare Trends Institute and Vice President of Marketing at WEX Health, Sander Domaszewicz, Principal and Senior Consultant at Mercer, and Chris Byrd, Healthcare Operations Officer at WEX Health, these leaders brought decades of combined experience in healthcare benefits, legal policy, and business strategies, condensing a lot of highly valuable information into a brief, one-hour webcast.

Engagement Driving Changes in 2017

With many employer groups already making changes to their strategies over the past few years—implementing a wellness or preventive health program, adjusting cost sharing, or focusing on defined contribution—the top concern for employers in 2017 is employee engagement.

Engaging these employees, however, does pose a challenge as nearly 40% of employees had concerns about benefit communication and education and only 36% felt that benefit cost information was clearly presented, according to our consumer survey completed in Fall 2016.

Five Top Benefits Communication Methods

With engagement being its own issue, employers need to look at the way they communicate. While email may be right for some, other employees have other preferences, with a notable discrepancy between employer methods and employee needs:

Employers feel confident in their ability to educate employees, rating themselves at a 7.2 out of 10, roughly in line with employees rating their employers at 69% in the consumer survey.

Cadillac Tax Not Changing Many Minds

Even as this survey was completed during the election season, many employers are still in a holding pattern with respect to the Cadillac Tax. As it had already been delayed once from 2018 to 2020, respondents may have expected the threat of the tax to be delayed again, as fewer than 6% of employers have made aggressive changes to prepare, and a vast majority were waiting for definitive guidance:

• 6% of Employers haven’t taken any actions
• 7% are unsure what they need to do
• 7% were not affected

Some Things Change, Others Stay the Same

As much as there have been changes in the way employers look at benefits, many things have remained steady:

• Dental, Family Coverage, and Vision were the most commonly offered benefits.
• Three Quarters of Employers in the last two years believe that benefits offerings are critical to their recruitment and retention.
• In this and last year’s report, nearly 90% are still yet to make changes for the Cadillac Tax

Much, Much More: Healthcare Benefits Trends to Watch in 2017

If all of the information above came from the first ten minutes of the webcast, imagine what you can learn from the remaining 50 minutes.

The entire Healthcare Benefits Trends to Watch in 2017 features proprietary research into health plans, costs, adoption rates, and more from Mercer, presented by Sander Domaszewicz, Principal and Senior Consultant, and an in-depth look at the legal and regulatory outlook under Trump, the importance of the CURES Act passed last year, and the repeal and replace/revise and repair future for the Accordable Care Act, presented by Chris Byrd of WEX Health.

Learn more about what you can expect and how you can prepare in 2017 by watching the entire Healthcare Benefits Trends to Watch Webcast.