You’ve heard the noise about Health Care Reform. And so have your employees. You are likely planning a strategy for how your company will adapt when it comes to benefits. You are probably reviewing employee counts, hours worked, eligibility waiting periods, contributions, and plan designs. Here is a question that is equally as important: “How will I effectively communicate all of these changes to my staff?”
Technology is perhaps one of the largest components to successfully transitioning your company’s benefits package in preparation for Health Care Reform. Let me explain.
Communicating the right information, in the right way.
Staff meetings are great, but perhaps you’re employees are not all in the same location. And what happens to a message when it’s repeated over and over again? Like in a game of telephone, it gets changed and misinterpreted. Using technology to communicate your message ensures that the same information is being transmitted to everyone.
Enrollment
Online benefits enrollment may not be new, but it’s not a trend anymore, either. For some companies, online enrollment is still years down the road due to budget, employee demographics or job titles, etc. For those organizations that have already adopted online enrollment, they have used it to communicate messages to their staff, to track information and interaction with benefits, to produce reports that are vital in decision making, and to make the enrollment process more efficient for their employees. So how does online enrollment help with Health Care Reform?
1.Compliance requirements
- Post notices on your protected online enrollment website (Example: The Notice of the Exchanges later this year)
- Summary of Benefits and Coverage for all plans
2.Tracking capabilities
- Produce reports that allow you to track contributions
3. Post messages and announcements from upper management
- Share information about decision-making in response to HCR
4. Education resources
- Houses educational information to help people understand their plans
5. Post information about Health Care Reform and what it means to employees
- Fact sheets and how the exchanges work
- Where to get help
For more information about online enrollment and utilizing technology to leverage the importance and value of employee benefits, contact Lauren Simonetti at lauren@austinfg.com.
