An excerpt from Medical Answers Now!: How Direct Primary Care Guarantees Fast Access to Your Doctor.
Let’s look at healthcare and health insurance from the employer’s perspective.
If you are a business owner, executive, middle manager, human resources specialist, or otherwise have budgetary responsibility at your company, the following insights should be helpful to your understanding of this important aspect of your business.
At the end of the day, every business is a healthcare business. Health benefits are typically the second or third largest line item in a company’s budget, so your healthcare business is indeed big business.
Businesses spend so much on health insurance for several reasons. Primarily, because it’s expected. The employer mandate contained within the Affordable Care Act requires all businesses with fifty or more full-time employees to provide affordable insurance that meets minimum requirements or face hefty penalties. Health insurance coverage is also expected by employees, regardless of whether or not their employer is legally required to provide it. This employee benefit is nearly essential in order to attract and retain high-quality employees for the long run. The quality of health coverage and the direct cost to employees matter to them. A generous benefits package that offers health insurance with good coverage and doesn’t cost employees too much out of their paychecks or pocket is attractive during recruiting and has been shown to be a significant factor in employee longevity with their employer.
The COVID-19 pandemic also created new pressures on employers. In addition to shaky revenue and new expenses, there have been new operational challenges, a shift to remote work, and a pivot of business offerings to preserve viability. Initially, employees were worried about keeping their jobs. Now, employers are worried about finding employees who want to work for an acceptable rate of pay. These changes in the available workforce have employers rethinking compensation packages, including health benefits, as a means to attract and keep quality employees in a post-pandemic environment.
Group health insurance is expensive and getting more expensive. I have discussed the current drivers of skyrocketing health insurance prices and what can be done to curtail them. As you might imagine by now, Direct Primary Care can play a significant role in reducing healthcare costs and thereby suppressing health insurance costs while simultaneously creating value and loyalty in employees.