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Companies Need to Manage Employee Health – Not Just Benefits
With U.S. healthcare spending set to grow 5 percent – or more than $100 billion – each year through 2013, businesses are scrambling for ways to save money on their health benefits. To do so, they’ll have to invest proactively in their employees’ health – and not just shop around for a good insurance deal, according to a new report from the Healthcare Performance Management (HPM) Institute.
Active management of healthcare delivery and cost control has not typically been seen as an integral part of the mission for human resource (HR) departments. But changing times – and skyrocketing costs – have pushed healthcare performance management (HPM) center stage for companies that want to boost productivity, while investing benefits dollars in better health outcomes for their employees.
This shift away from traditional ways of managing employee health benefits stems from a clear and universal reality: rising healthcare costs increasingly pose a core business challenge. Indeed, U.S. healthcare spending approached $2.25 trillion in 2007 – more than 16 percent of the gross domestic product according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Employers increasingly are feeling the bite of those rising costs. A 2008 study conducted by the health policy journal Health Affairs showed that average annual premiums increased 5 percent to $4,704 for single coverage and $12,680 for family coverage. The study’s data was derived from interviews with 1,927 public and private employers.
New research echoes those trends. According to a Dec. 2010 report from RNCOS Industry Research Solutions “U.S. Healthcare Sector Forecast to 2012”, national healthcare spending is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 5 percent during 2010-2013.
The Last Mile: The Role of HPM in Rounding Out the Enterprise Human Resource Management Mission calls on companies to incorporate workforce health into their overall strategy for protecting and developing their human capital resources. This report also explains how HR teams are deploying healthcare performance management (HPM) technology to improve employee health and productivity.
Click here to download a complimentary copy of this Healthcare Performance Management Institute report.
Want to learn more?
Listen to our recent StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective podcast interview with George Pantos, Executive Director of the Healthcare Performance Management Institute during which we discuss how companies can keep their current health plans in light of the recently passed healthcare legislation and under what circumstances they may wish to do so.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:57 — 27.4MB)
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Gerald Adolph is a New York-based Senior Partner with Booz & Company with a specialty in strategy and operations for technology-driven businesses. His work primarily focuses on assisting clients with growth strategy, new business development, and industry restructuring. He has led numerous assignments in corporate and portfolio strategy as well as business unit strategy. In addition, he deals with value chain and industry restructuring driven by technology changes, and how companies respond to these disruptions and opportunities. Gerald is the co-author of 
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Paul Leinwand is a Booz & Company partner based in Chicago. He works in the consumer, media, and digital practice and focuses on capabilities-driven strategy for consumer products companies. Paul is the co-author of 
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