Whether you are following a calender year or fiscal year, crunch time for a business is the busiest time of the year . It’s your last chance to meet – and possibly beat – your annual goals. You’ve got to wrap up the year and prepare for the next one.
Frequently, included in all this hustle and bustle is open enrollment, that hectic period when employees make their benefits elections for the next year. The costs are huge, the stakes are big and the stress is high, but solutions don’t have to be difficult. You can help your company, its employees and its bottom line by getting TRICARE Supplement added to your benefits offerings.
Nothing is More Stressful than Going Over Budget.
The employees at your company are worried about a lot of things, and money is high on the list. According to a study from the American Psychological Association, 62 percent of people say that money is the most common source of stress for them. Health care also ranked high as a source of stress, with 43 percent of people saying health care issues cause them stress when thinking about the country.
Considering how expensive health care can be, it’s easy to connect these two issues. Many Americans have trouble paying medical bills after experiencing an illness or injury. According to Harvard’s Being Seriously Ill in America Today report, even though 91 percent of seriously ill patients have health insurance, more than a third of them have trouble paying their hospital bills.
And it’s hard not to worry when the news is filled with stories about insured individuals who receive outrageous balance bills after seeking treatment – like the high school teacher who, according to NPR, received a bill for $108,951 after experiencing a heart attack. Later reports show that he got his bill significantly reduced, but not everybody facing large hospital bills is so lucky.
Companies Worry about Budgets, Too.
Employees aren’t the only ones feeling the stress of financial issues. Companies have to protect their bottom line to survive.
Employee compensation accounts for much of a company’s expenses, and it goes far beyond the paycheck employees take home.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employee compensation averaged $36.22 per hour as of June 2018, and $11.50 of that – or 31.7 percent – came in the form of benefits. Among private industry workers, insurance benefits alone averaged $2.72 per hour or 7.9 percent of compensation – more than any other category – and all but 0.4 percent of this went to health insurance specifically.
Adding TRICARE Supplement is a Simple Way to Cut Costs.
Both employees and employers are eager to cut costs. Adding TRICARE Supplement as a voluntary benefit can be one way to do this.
TRICARE is the health care system of the United States military. It serves active-duty and retired uniformed service members, as well as their spouses and dependents.
Eligible retired military personnel and their dependents can choose from several TRICARE plans. They can also enroll in TRICARE Supplement, an optional plan that pairs with the primary TRICARE plans to provide more complete coverage.
If you have any retired military members among your workers, consider offering them TRICARE Supplement as a voluntary benefit.
- This helps employees, who get an affordable coverage option that can reduce out-of-pocket health care costs.
- This helps employers, who don’t have to pay anything to provide coverage. The benefit can be paid for using paycheck deductions.
The fourth quarter is a stressful time of the year, but you can make it less stressful by adding TRICARE Supplement to your benefit offerings. Watch the video below to get tools and ideas to present this idea to your team!
