America's Benefit Specialist October 2022

NOTEWORTHY

• Location proximity or convenience (41%) • Ability to get an appointment quickly (40%) Additionally, respondents were asked: “Assuming quality is equivalent across all care options, how far would you travel to get the best price for medical care?” The survey found most Americans are willing to travel some for a reasonable price in healthcare but will not go to extraordinary lengths to access the best price: Eighty-two percent of Americans prefer to stay within 50 miles when seeking out care at the best price. “The findings can help healthcare leaders prioritize what to focus on when thinking about their bottom lines through the lens of what patients are willing to pay for and aligning it with improving the patient expe rience,” said Amy Raymond, VP of revenue cycle operations at AKASA. STOP-LOSS PREMIUMS UP EIGHT PERCENT FOR 2021 Segal has looked at health plans’ medical stop-loss coverage for the 2021 policy year. The company analyzed data from 239 plans, with 2,200 covered participants per group on average. Segal has maintained its National Medical Stop-Loss Database since the ACA eliminated annual and lifetime dollar limits on essential health benefits. Key findings on medical stop-loss coverage: • There was an eight-percent average pre mium increase for all stop-loss insurance policies in Segal’s 2021 dataset as a result of aggressive negotiations. • A large majority of plans—94%—have purchased broad coverage that covers medical and prescription drug claims. • Among plans that bid or renewed their stop-loss coverage, 86% stayed with the incumbent insurer. • High-cost claimants with $100,000+ paid claims per year account for less than one

• Twenty-eight percent of workers are “planners,” keeping up to date on benefits throughout the year so they are prepared at enrollment time. • Twenty-two percent of workers are “analyzers,” analyzing the coverage and crunching the numbers for all of their benefits choices. • Twelve percent of workers are “consult ers,” typically needing to consult with someone else before making their benefits selections. • Eight percent of workers are “avoiders,” tending to ignore all the open enrollment emails and would prefer not to think about their benefits. The survey showed that many workers (39%) said their overall health has improved thanks to the benefits and services offered by their company. SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS WHAT AMERICANS ARE WILLING TO PAY MORE FOR IN HEALTHCARE AKASA, a developer of AI for healthcare operations, recently released findings from a survey conducted on its behalf by YouGov, which highlights factors that influence how much Americans are willing to pay when choosing their healthcare providers and how far they’re willing to travel for quality care at a reasonable price. Respondents were asked: “When you seek out healthcare, are you willing to pay more or less for any of the following factors?” The survey of more than 2,000 Americans ranked factors that impact their healthcare provider choice with regards to costs, with quality of care being the top influencing factor: • Quality of care (57%) • Ability to work with care team of choice (47%) • Ability to work with hospitals of choice (41%)

FOUR IN 10 WORKERS WILL SCALE BACK ON EMPLOYEE BENEFITS DURING OPEN

ENROLLMENT DUE TO INFLATION New research fromThe Hartford found 40% of U.S. workers reported inflation will make them scale back on the employee benefits they choose during open enrollment. In addi tion, 48% of workers said inflation is making it difficult for them to pay for their benefits. “With our current economic environ ment, it is an ideal time for workers to take stock of what benefits they currently have rather than automatically rolling over the same benefits they chose in previous years,” said Dana MacKinnon, head of relationship management strategy and enrollment for Group Benefits at The Hartford. Younger workers were more likely to report they would cut back on benefits compared to older peers. More than half of the workers ages 18-34 (51%) reported they are likely to scale back on their benefits com pared to those ages 35-54 (41%) and those ages 55+ (25%). While many workers noted they will select fewer benefits this year, The Hartford’s August Future of Benefits Pulse Survey found more than half (55%) of workers admitted that, at their age, they should know more about their employee benefits beyond medical, dental and vision than they cur rently do. The research indicates that clearer communications could help, with 37% of workers saying the names and descriptions of their employee benefits make them hard to understand. According to the national survey, many workers automatically make the same ben efits choices as the previous year, which is the most common approach among working Americans when selecting benefits: • Thirty percent of U.S. workers are “rollers,” typically rolling over the same benefits choices they made the previous year.

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