What Are the Immediate Changes?

There are certain things that will happen in the first 6 months after the bill is actually signed into law:

• Insurance companies will not be allowed to put lifetime limits on coverage. This means that people with chronic health conditions will never “use up” all of their insurance coverage.
• People with children on their company insurance plan can keep unmarried dependents enrolled until they turn 26. This is very important because of the number of college graduates who are unemployed.
• Insurance plans will be required to cover preventative health services like colonoscopies, osteoporosis screening, screening for things like high blood pressure, diabetes, and sexually transmitted diseases and quit-smoking counseling.
• Pre-existing serious health conditions can no longer prevent people from getting health insurance. They will be able to purchase coverage from a government-subsidized exchange. However, this coverage will not be available until 2014.

Health Insurance Will Be Required

Uninsured people will be required to purchase health insurance by 2014. Subsidies will be available that reduce the premiums subject to income limits.

Penalties will be imposed on people who do not purchase insurance that could be as much as 1% of their income.

Changes to Medicare

Tighter controls may be put on decisions for care that are considered too costly. The care provided to older people may even be restricted. Cancer screening could be denied for older citizens.

The Medicare system will see a huge hit because approximately one-half of the health reform costs for the next 10 years will come from the Medicare budget.

Pre-Existing Illnesses and Loss of Coverage

Starting this year, the health reform bill will ensure that insurers can’t deny coverage to any child based on existing health problems. In 2014, this will be expanded to include all applicants.

Within the first six months of the bill being signed into law, an insurer cannot drop policyholders except in cases of fraud.

Longer Wait Time to See Your Doctor

Millions more people will have access to health care but the number of healthcare workers will not grow quickly enough to keep up. You can expect to wait about twice as long to get in to see a doctor as it did in the past.

Changes to the Coverage You Get from Your Employer

Employers who offer high-value, ‘cadillac’ health plans will probably begin to cut back on those benefits. If they don’t do so by 2019, they could face fines from the government. This could possibly mean no more vision or dental coverage or going to a specialist without a referral from your family doctor.

Benefits for Women

With this new health bill, insurers will have to cover maternity care the same way they cover any other medical procedure, but not until 2014. Employers will also be required to allow break time for mothers who are nursing and a private place where they can use their breast pump.

Losing or Leaving Your Job

If someone quits or loses their job, the same exchanges that help lower income people purchase insurance will be available. This means when you leave your job, you don’t necessarily have to pay the high COBRA costs. This is very important for people with a pre-existing condition. You may even be able to get free health coverage under some circumstances.

Higher Taxes

In 2013, Medicare payroll tax will go up for incomes over $200,000 a year.

As these changes come about, the staff at myBenefitStatements is ready to help you communicate… why not give us a call today!

A study by the Prudential Insurance Company looked at a number of variables that affected employees’ perceived value of their benefits, and the effectiveness of communications topped the list. The study found effective communications can have as much an impact on employees’ satisfaction with their benefits as the actual benefits or amount of money invested in the benefits.

Even when economic factors force cutbacks and layoffs, organizations that focus on a strong communications program help their employees not only understand, but also appreciate, the benefits available to them – which contributes toward positive employee morale.

A separate survey from Watson Wyatt Worldwide dramatically shows the impact of benefits communications:

“Companies with above average benefits but ineffective communications had a 25% employee satisfaction level, while those with below average benefits but effective communications had a 76% employee satisfaction level.”

Stated another way, it can be better for a company to provide fewer benefits but explain them well, than to provide an expansive-and costly-package of benefits that employees don't really understand.

Keep the following considerations in mind when assessing your benefit communications program:

• Written communications should be in simple and understandable, yet engaging, language. Employees will respond best to communications that they can directly relate to, so use specific examples or modeling tools to help employees select benefits and understand how the benefits can work for them.
• Recognizing that different individuals learn in different ways, use various communication methods and incorporate visuals along with text.
• Communicate throughout the year, not only during open enrollment.
• Help employees understand how the company's benefits offerings are particularly relevant to them.
• Communicate the full value of your benefit's program by providing regular benefit statements. Reminding employees of their total compensation is a great way improve your employees' perception of existing benefit programs.

If the prospect of embarking on a benefits communications campaign seems daunting, give us a call. We can help you provide ideas and strategies along with actual communications materials to enrich your employees’ understanding of their benefits.

Don’t underestimate the value of communications and education as a way to strengthen your company’s benefits package. As the research above indicates, dollars spent on communication and education can be as valuable an investment as dollars spent on the benefits themselves.

Be sure to take a look at a few of our sample benefit communication pieces online or give us a call today.

The study looked at a number of variables that affected employees’ perceived value of their benefits. The effectiveness of communications topped the list, followed by a company paying all or most of the cost of benefits and then by a company offering a range of benefits. According to the study,

how employees perceive the value of their benefits directly influences how important benefits are to employees when selecting a job or when deciding whether to stay with a current employer.

This is because effective communications help employees to not only understand, but also appreciate, the benefits they have or those that are available to them. Thus, the study validates the positive connection between employee benefits and an employer’s recruitment and retention efforts.

A separate survey from Watson Wyatt Worldwide dramatically shows the impact of benefits communications: Companies with above average benefits but ineffective communications had a 25% employee satisfaction level, while those with below average benefits but effective communications had a 76% employee satisfaction level. Stated another way, it can be better for a company to provide fewer benefits but explain them well, than to provide an expansive-and costly-package of benefits that employees don’t really understand.

Keep the following considerations in mind when assessing your benefits communications-

• Written communications should be in simple and understandable, yet engaging, language. Employees will respond best to communications that they can directly relate to, so use specific examples or modeling tools to help employees select benefits and understand how the benefits can work for them.
• Recognizing that different individuals learn in different ways, use various media at your disposal for your communications. Go beyond written communications to also include emails, meetings/seminars, announcements, posters that highlight images and graphics, interactive web tools, and video conferencing.
• Communicate throughout the year, not only during open enrollment. Use non-enrollment periods to highlight particular features of your benefit plans, perhaps focusing on one each month. This enables you to hone in on benefits or plan features that are particularly useful or unique, and that perhaps get overlooked during the frantic activity of annual enrollment. Such features might include wellness features in the company health plan, modeling tools available through the 401(k) plan, the advantages of pre-tax employee contributions, changing benefits during the year in response to a family status change, etc.
• Help employees understand how the company’s benefits offerings are particularly relevant to them. For example, if your company offers voluntary benefits, employees are likely to have broad choices that go well beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to employee benefits. Highlighting the convenience, access and cost-savings features of workplace voluntary benefits can help employees see how advantageous such offerings can be to them.
• Communicate the full value of your benefit’s program by providing regular benefit statements. Reminding employees of their total compensation is a great way improve your employees’ perception of existing benefit programs.

If the prospect of embarking on a benefits communications campaign seems daunting, give us a call. We can help you provide ideas and strategies along with actual communications materials to enrich your employees’ understanding of their benefits.

Don’t underestimate the value of communications and education as a way to strengthen your company’s benefits package. As the research above indicates, dollars spent on communication and education can be as valuable an investment as dollars spent on the benefits themselves.

Be sure to take a look at a few of our sample benefit communications pieces online or give us a call today.

These advantages alone, however, do not ensure that a voluntary benefits program will be a success. Careful planning, including the selection of benefits to offer, choice of vendors and well-crafted communications, are keys to program success.

• Bring in the kinds of benefits that employees want and will enroll in. Survey employees as to what types of additional benefits they would participate in if given the opportunity. Depending on your employee demographics, these could include additional life insurance options, long-term care, or even pet insurance. Voluntary benefits enable employees to self-customize an individual benefits package that is uniquely appropriate to them.
• Examine gaps in your company's current benefits coverage, and consider how voluntary benefits plans can be used to fill these gaps. For companies that have had to scale back on their regular benefits package, voluntary benefits can be particularly helpful. If your benefits budget is tight and, for example, needs to be dedicated to helping fund medical benefits, offering dental and vision on a voluntary basis gives employees easy and affordable access to these benefits.
• After determining which benefits your company would like to extend to employees on a voluntary basis, research appropriate vendors. Look for the product lines vendors offer, whether they have minimum participation requirements, how they conduct enrollment, and their initial and ongoing communications materials. Also examine the vendors' experience and track record working with companies of your size and in your industry. The quality of the vendor, employees' customer service experience with the vendor, and the vendor's ability to smoothly work with your company's human resources department and systems will go a long way in determining the success of your voluntary benefits program.
• Though the vendor will supply some communications materials, company communications concerning the program will help to incorporate it into your overall benefits program in the eyes of employees, making it more likely employees will enroll. Consider announcing new voluntary benefits offerings in a communication from top management, which will demonstrate the company's commitment to the program. Make voluntary benefits enrollment a part of your annual enrollment process, and incorporate descriptions and information on voluntary benefits offerings into the communications materials for your core plans.
• Work closely with the insurance provider you select for your company's voluntary benefits to enhance communications opportunities and enrollment efforts. This will be particularly important if any of the voluntary benefits have minimum participation requirements. Some voluntary benefits vendors will want to come in for presentations, individual meetings or enrollment sessions, all of which can be very effective in increasing participation in these programs.

Voluntary benefits can be a great add-on to any company's benefits program. Careful planning and consideration of the various issues that can affect participation can increase the chances of program success.

Contact Us to discuss how we can help you to communicate with your employees.

When they compared the results with the previous survey, they saw a significant increase in employee satisfaction with their benefits. In fact, they described the increase as “off the charts!”

Our client believes that a contributing factor to this huge growth in their employees' perception of their benefits is employee benefit statements.