Are You Ready for the Digital Transformation of Employee Healthcare?
With complexities in the healthcare space continually growing, employers often need to handhold consumers through the process. Digital platforms can ease this – but you cannot do without a deeper understanding of regulatory norms, insurance plans, and their potential impact on your employees.
Given that the healthcare landscape has gone through a paradigmatic shift over the last few years, consumers are more empowered and aware of their individual needs. For employers, this requires revisiting their employee healthcare program and strive for more efficient digitalization.
There are several forces at work in the healthcare space, such as personalization, growing complexities, and the user as a critical decision-making agent. Let’s begin by understanding what challenges are faced by both the consumer and the employer.
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Common pain points, emerging challenges
As mentioned, with a highly layered healthcare system, consumers are now vital stakeholders, regardless of whether the situation demands a regular checkup, chronic conditions, or, alternatively, a crisis scenario must be managed. Consumers constantly must make difficult decisions, from the choice of care provider to benefits package selection.
However, most consumers lack the necessary data, the resources, or the support required to make informed and quickfire decisions.
“Almost one-half of respondents believe taking medication is the most important thing they can do to protect their health. While nearly one-third of those taking prescription medications for chronic conditions say they are not concerned about forgetting to take their medications, data on non-adherence paints a different picture.
More than half of the patients in many disease states are not adherent to their medication therapies leading to one out of every nine dollars spent on healthcare in the U.S. is wasted. Patients need to be reminded of the importance of engaging in their healthcare,” notes Senior Clinical Consultant at Express Scripts, Kyle Amelung. To better understand the causes of patient disengagement and behaviors driving better decisions and healthier outcomes, Express Scripts and Russell Research recently collaborated to survey 800 U.S. adults taking medications to treat chronic conditions. Express Script’s digital reminder technology, when integrated with healthcare platforms, can be a useful and easy digital care tool.
With employers trying to bridge work-life balance for their employees, healthcare programs that help navigate this terrain for employees are crucial. That said, it is an onerous task to genuinely utilize a healthcare benefits program, in a way that makes it both efficient and meaningful.
On the other hand, there’s a constant uptick in costs, and a plethora of solutions flooding the market every day. In fact, healthcare costs are rising at a steady 5% every year – download the full report here, with a 4-step guide to preparing for 2020’s healthcare landscape.
Answers, approaches, and the need for awareness & pragmatism
Remember, a good employer must carefully consider the above factors. One must design targeted, individualized programs, embracing both digital and human channels. The company must also look at addressing diverse needs, spanning multiple stages of caregiving, such as chronic care, preventive care, general medical, and behavioral health management.
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Clearly, technology is critical to this initiative. With new tools, platforms, and apps such as wearables or mobile platforms, firms can offer new modes of healthcare management that are consistent, regular and hyper-connected. Having said that, employers must not forget the all-important ‘human’ factor necessary to truly leverage digital innovation.
Greater personalized support, effective data maintenance on an employee’s health profile, and streamlined claims reports & management, will help strengthen this process. This digital transformation journey, then, will action cutting-edge tools to offer a plethora of new services, even as each is fine-tuned with a sensitive human touch.
Consider a solution like DirectPath’s Health Care Cost Estimator – besides a powerful data-driven investment calculator and recommendation engine, the solution features personalized help, via DirectPath Advocates.
“Our cost estimator tool, complemented by our robust and highly personal transparency and advocacy solutions, gives employees what they need to make informed decisions and limit spending for themselves and their employers,” explains Bridget Lipezker, Senior VP & GM for Advocacy and Transparency at DirectPath.
Clearly, data science is another promising area here, making information management faster, simpler, and smoother – while consistent collaboration and regular employer-employee conversations drive an approach that’s nuanced and well-calibrated to the individual.
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A final word
These are great times for those who can make the best use of digital tools. Sophisticated and future-focused employers will regularly assimilate new movements in technology, and intricately map the same onto their healthcare plans.
At all times, they will also consider the emotional, compassionate, and humanitarian side of the employer-worker relationship, making good health and overall wellbeing, a key component of business productivity and profitability.
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