Page 38 - Delaware Medical Journal - May/June 2018
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Keeping an Open Mind in Buying Health Insurance
Aaron Mitchell
If you’re a regular at a restaurant, you
the same thing to your barber or stylist when you get your hair cut. It’s a good way to know you’re receiving exactly what you’ve come to know and love. The risk of always asking for the same thing is that we don’t have the opportunity to discover something better. Who knows better tasting or if you would look better with shorter hair? There isn’t much risk to being consistent, but there are also no pleasant surprises.
Creativity and openness to innovation is what often separates successful companies from those that are simply getting by. Video conferencing was something the movie Back to the Future II showed as a futuristic concept 30 of documents seemed like a fantasy
20 years ago. Health Savings Account plans seemed like a crazy new way to buy health insurance less than 15 years ago. It’s important to constantly remind ourselves that there may be a better way to do everything in our lives.
When it comes to health insurance,
ordering “the usual.” Too many times we’re instructed to match the current plans or to keep the exact same insurance
to accept or consider. We appreciate
that your health insurance is a sacred protection that you and your employees rely on. The important point is that, just because you’ve had a $500 deductible plan with $30 copays doesn’t mean your primary goal should be to keep that plan unchanged.
The problem is that most practices
(and companies in general) have had to risen faster than revenue is growing. Passing on more cost to your staff or raising deductibles and copays can be
a necessary evil to keep the lights on at live with is simply a short-term relief to the practice. Many practices were offered years after the passing of health care reform. It’s a way to put off seeing what else is in the market. This strategy works very well... for the insurance companies.
Much like smart phones, electric cars and 4K televisions, the health insurance arena is offering new innovations.
The difference is that you won’t see expensive advertisements on TV to
show you the new programs available
to cover your medical bills. Alternative funding options, private exchanges
and population health management
are the wave of the future. The value
of these concepts is sustainability.
The combination of these innovative strategies is the ability to control your costs and avoid seeing that same “trend” increase that has been a tradition in health insurance renewals.
If your practice is willing to think
you’re getting lower increases, avoiding downgrades to your plans, and creating a healthier workforce that is missing fewer your practice is simply going through the annual ritual of shopping coverage to see if someone else will charge you less for isn’t very competitive today. There
are very few health insurance carriers available in Delaware to compete for your business.
These alternative approaches open up the market to many more
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Del Med J | May/June 2018 | Vol. 90 | No. 5
