The rising cost of providing healthcare coverage for employees has led many organizations to look for alternative solutions for promoting health and well-being. Doing so can reap significant financial rewards through lower medical costs, reduced absenteeism, and increased productivity. But it can also help improve employee satisfaction and retention, which is vital for so many companies as they struggle with staffing shortages.

• Reduces health risks
• Improves quality of life
• Creates a healthier workforce
• Lowers insurance premiums
• Reduces worker’s compensation claims
• Improves productivity
• Reduces absenteeism
• Enhances employee morale
• Improves recruitment and retention efforts

Throughout this blog series, we’ve discussed the evolving healthcare landscape and the human costs of inadequate care management, member compliance, and barriers to care. We talked about the critical need for a new, more personalized approach that meets members where they are and that takes into account their unique health needs and desires. The following is an outline of the five steps organizations can take to do just that.

Address chronic conditions in the workplace. The growing prevalence of chronic disease, which is expected to increase as our nation’s population ages, is a significant strain on organizations through increased costs and deteriorating productivity. Employers can mitigate the impact by identifying the most at-risk members through risk stratification, providing personal health nurses (PHNs) to guide and support members through their healthcare journey, and implementing disease and case management to help reduce barriers and improve care plan compliance.

Improve member health literacy. Health literacy—the ability of a member to find and use health-related information—is closely aligned with optimal outcomes, more cost-effective utilization, and lower medical expenditures. Employers can leverage PHNs to educate members about their health unique health conditions, how lifestyle and personal choice factors play a role in their health, the importance of following their care plan and staying compliant with their medications, and the resources available throughout the community.

Provide a personalized, holistic health and well-being program. Healthcare has become increasingly fragmented and episodic, ignoring that patients are complex individuals who need care that includes the entire human, not just their symptoms. Members need someone to be able to connect the dots holistically. PHNs fill this role by collaborating with care providers, coordinating referrals, intervening when necessary, and ensuring members get the holistic care they need.

Focus on active member engagement. What many health plans call member engagement is just standard, one-size-fits-all communications about their benefits. Active member engagement goes further and includes customized engagement strategies that meet each member’s changing needs and desires throughout their healthcare journey. This includes ensuring they understand how their benefits work and what it means in terms of premium and consumption costs. Active member engagement also means guiding and supporting members to leverage their benefits cost-effectively, bringing ongoing, long-lasting health benefits.

Choose the best care management solution. Many third-party administrators (TPAs) offer care management as part of a larger bundled program, which means it is impossible to break out and calculate results, especially financial return. It is better to choose a carved-out care management solution as they can provide in-depth analyses of each program element. This level of transparency is particularly helpful for tying investments to outcomes and cost savings.

Partnering with Conifer Health

Developing and implementing a comprehensive health and well-being program can be challenging. Conifer Health can help. Conifer takes a holistic member-centric and team-based approach to health and well-being, one that focuses on education and active member engagement. Conifer’s PHNs get to know members personally, establishing a relationship of trust and accountability. Conifer PHNs also provide individualized proactive member support, often before a member recognizes they have a need.

Conifer Health also leverages highly detailed health data to create actionable insights that enable its PHNs to engage members and optimize benefit plan utilization through collaborative care management and heightened health literacy.

Learn how Conifer Health can help your organization foster a culture of health and well-being while lowering medical costs, improving productivity, and enhancing member satisfaction.