As employers expand benefit offerings to provide more value to employees, there can be some growing pains along the way. One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen companies face is that employees often become overwhelmed by the amount of information and options available, and when making important health care decisions, there’s the potential to experience decision fatigue or paralysis by analysis. Employees can end up making a premature choice just to make a decision or, in some cases, they may backburner the decision and wind up never seeking the care they need.
This is not an isolated problem. It’s a challenge that nearly half of Americans have experienced in recent years. For example: after cost, Americans rank ‘difficulty finding a provider’ as the top obstacle (42 percent) in obtaining mental health treatment, according to Gallup. And a Harris Poll survey in 2023 revealed that almost half (44 percent) of Americans surveyed skipped or delayed some kind of medical care within the previous two years.
While many employers have expanded benefits in recent years, having more point solutions to manage can contribute to employees feeling frustrated and overwhelmed when trying to navigate their options. Providing employees with a care navigation solution can address this concern head on, by helping employees understand their options, choose the best provider and get the treatment they need.
To some degree, an employer’s benefit offerings are only as good as the experience (and outcomes) employees see when interacting with those benefits. Offering additional support to enhance the benefits experience is an effective way to give employees access to the information they need to make the best decisions for their health and wellness goals, boost benefits utilization and ensure that employees are getting the most out of your investment.
Benefits and Features of Curating Relevant Digital Health Solutions
Care navigation tools can help you and your employees manage a growing list of point solutions with relevant suggestions and decision-making guidance. Expanding benefit offerings is a great value add for employees if they can easily and effectively navigate their options. That’s why the primary focus of care navigation is helping employees understand when, where and how to use their benefits effectively.
A valuable care navigation tool suggests relevant point solutions to employees, helping them explore options that may be appropriate for their particular health journey. It provides a personalized, guided benefits experience that allows employees to zero in on solutions that make sense for them, rather than leaving them to sort through a whole world of possibilities on their own.
Looking to the Future: How Claims Analytics May Support Relevant Care Decisions
Thanks to what may be the next generation of care navigation tools, employers may be able to leverage claims data to help employees make more relevant care decisions, enhance the benefits experience, boost utilization and improve real-world outcomes for the people who keep your business running and growing. To do this, employers may want to consider a new approach to digital health-solution management for employers and their workforces.
Leaning on claims analytics may help employers maximize utilization of the benefits they already offer and, simultaneously, collect important data to make decisions about future offerings (e.g., which programs to expand, what to drop). Claims data helps employers gain visibility into the costs of employee health care, a growing concern as the price of medical care continues to increase. Learn more in Seven Smart Ways to Harness the Power of Your Benefits Claims Data.
One way to do this is by evaluating claims data to identify which digital health solutions may not be a good fit for a given employee population. Gleaning these insights from actual claims (e.g., conditions and diagnoses that are occurring in a population) vs making guesses based on broader population data or other less relevant factors (or worse, blind guesses based on unknowns) is an effective way to make data-informed decisions about future benefit offerings and strategies that keep costs under control while adding value for employees.
Empowering Employees Through Streamlined Benefit Experiences
While expanding employee benefit offerings can enhance value, the overwhelming nature of multiple options may lead to decision fatigue. Implementing care navigation tools and leveraging claims analytics can help empower employees to make informed choices, improve benefit utilization and ultimately enhance overall employee wellness. By prioritizing a streamlined benefits experience, employers can ensure their investments translate into meaningful support for their workforce.
Benefitfocus’ new Care Partner Panel is one such solution. In addition to offering a single platform to simplify employee benefits enrollment, communications and administrative tasks, Benefitfocus will soon add a valuable solution for managing point solutions that improves the benefit experience for employees and enhances the value of an employer’s overall benefit offerings.
Ranging from general health and well-being advocacy to targeted solutions for heart health, mental health care, fertility services, women’s health and more, Care Partner Panel will enhance access to care and make it easier for employees to engage with their valuable benefits.
The information provided does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal or medical advice; instead, all information and content herein is provided for general informational purposes only. The decision to select a digital health solution provider is complex and the integrated Care Partner Panel digital health solution offerings are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney or other professional medical or health advisors. Nothing within the Care Partner Panel program is intended to constitute or replace medical advice from a properly licensed healthcare provider. The decision to participate in the Care Partner Panel program is not intended to create a fiduciary relationship between a Benefitfocus client and Benefitfocus, or its subcontractors, or its digital health solution partners. The services provided by a digital health solution provider may require plan participants to interact with Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) generated content. AI generated content may contain errors or inaccuracies and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional advice. As a requirement in making such services available to its employees, Benefitfocus clients shall not mandate that their employees use the services of any particular digital health solution provider.
