Employers increasingly view employee health as part of brand

The future of employer health insurance in Wichita probably includes a dose of innovation.

“If you keep doing the same thing, you’re keep going to see the same result,” said Dyan Thornton, vice president of IMA, a benefits consulting group.

She and two other local insurance consultants participated in a panel discussion Thursday about local health insurance trends. The panel was part of a conference hosted by the Wichita Business Coalition on Health Care.

Thornton said she has seen a greater interest in health as a branding component for companies. She said employers are increasingly interested in employee well being.

“Not just, ‘Are you walking 10,000 steps?’ ” she said. “The overall health, not just physical health.”

Aaron Wells, another panelist who works for a consulting company called USI Midwest, echoed Thornton.

“I think we’re finally starting to turn the corner on clients (companies) being interested in the health of employees,” he said.

Here are some of the top topics from the panel:

▪ Gary Hardman, a panelist and area vice president of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., said some employers now offer more education about chronic disease. He said doctor’s visits have become shorter.

“The doctors have to see more patients to keep the income up to pay the overhead, to pay the employees and make a decent living,” he said. “I think that’s one thing that’s suffered is the patient education.”

▪ Panelists talked about the rise of private exchanges. Private exchanges are similar to Obamacare’s state- and federal-based health insurance exchanges, but are instead run by private companies.

The exchanges usually offer an e-commerce approach to health insurance shopping.

“I think millennials are going to want to buy that way, so I can see it increasing in popularity,” Wells said.

But for now, local interest remains somewhat low.

“Private exchanges aren’t great yet, they’re just good,” Thornton said. “Until they’re substantially different than what you can get in the marketplace, I’m not sure why they’re going to be attractive.”

▪ Panelists said they all see many companies that offer high deductible plan options for employees.

“I had to chuckle when high deductible health plans came up,” Wells said. “What’s old is new again.

“High-deductible health plans came out in ’04 and we thought they would slay the dragon of health care costs. And they turned out to be less effective than we thought.”

He said employers should balance plan options with the pay of their employees.

“We have a lot of $9-, $10-an-hour jobs here, and we have to think, ‘What is a meaningful benefit to people in those populations?’ ” Wells said.

Hardman said the high-deductible health plans are common among young, healthy employees.

“But you never know who’s going to have that large claim,” he said about accidents.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Employers increasingly view employee health as part of brand."