While healthcare for most individuals isn’t usually straightforward, health benefits for employees are notoriously complex, often leaving the recipient unable to understand the level of care they’re entitled to, what the coverage includes and where to find the appropriate provider, let alone able to navigate the insurance claims process.

1. Are Your Healthcare
Benefits Baffling Your
Employees?

2. While healthcare for most individuals isn’t usually straightforward, health
benefits for employees are notoriously complex, often leaving the recipient
unable to understand the level of care they’re entitled to, what the coverage
includes and where to find the appropriate provider, let alone able to navigate
the insurance claims process.

3. In studies conducted in recent years, an overwhelming majority of employees
polled stated that they faced numerous challenges when receiving healthcare,
and that the challenges were made even more of an issue due to complex
benefits. Such confusion doesn’t just mean that employees in need of healthcare
aren’t able to access the services they need, meaning their conditions could
worsen – which is bad enough in its own right – but that they may even go on to
develop other mental or physical conditions as a result of the stress that their
healthcare benefits are causing them.

4. The problem may be worse for those employees with chronic
conditions
For individuals suffering from chronic conditions that require ongoing treatment
and support, the issues mentioned above are often compounded, with many
employees unable to make sense of diagnoses or test results.
A couple of other challenges complex healthcare benefits may pose for
employees are detailed below, and note that both of them have the potential to
have a negative impact on their employers, too, albeit through no fault of the
employees own:

5. ● A decline in mental and physical wellbeing
An employee facing challenges with healthcare, faces the possibility of a decline
in either their mental or physical wellbeing, or in some cases, both. Add this to
the illness, injury or condition that they’re originally seeking healthcare for, and
there’s little wonder so many employees take sick leave, leaving both them and
their employers, in a difficult position.
● Work time spent dealing with healthcare challenges
Many employees report having to spend work time on the phone dealing with
healthcare providers or insurers, and when you add this up over many months
and many employees, there is bound to be a decrease in productivity.

6. It’s clear that there’s a very real need for greater healthcare literacy and
education relating to the system as a whole, and that employers must take a
certain degree of responsibility for this.
So, what can employers do to help reduce the confusion?
While many employers do take the time to try and tailor their health benefits to
meet the needs of their employees, their efforts may be wasted if the benefits
those employees are entitled to simply aren’t being taken advantage of due to a
lack of understanding or general confusion surrounding the system.

7. One effective way of reducing the confusion surrounding employee healthcare
benefits, is to have HR meet with individuals to discuss their packages in detail;
giving them the opportunity to ask any questions they might have. Benefits
guides written in plain English and without baffling jargon, can also be helpful,
along with digestible videos, posters and group presentations.
Working with an outsourced healthcare benefits provider is another
way to ensure that your employees get access to the very best care for
their needs, and once you’ve found the right package, you may even
be able to use that very same provider to help educate your
employees as to exactly what their healthcare benefits are, and how
they can access them.

8. Apollo Payroll is dedicated to delivering expert advice, responsive service, and
highly accurate payroll processing and reporting to ensure the success and
growth of the business that we serve. Our services include comprehensive payroll
services in Homestead and other cities in Miami-Dade County, employee
background check and group health insurance in Miami & Coral Gables