The Key to Medical Cost Reduction: Partnering with Employees

The Key to Medical Cost Reduction: Partnering with Employees: "Then, the company made a strategic move which Kopanis told the audience was one she could not recommend highly enough. The Dynamic Dies workforce was primarily male, but the primary caregivers of employees' children were their spouses, who were incurring much of the medical costs, and most of the employees weren't passing the information Dynamic Dies was providing along to their spouses. So Dynamic Dies contacted employee's spouses directly by sending information/letters to their homes. The company also upped the ante in terms of motivation by letting employees know it would offer a 1 month free premium if there was a zero percent insurance increase the following year. In 2004-05, Dynamic Dies had a 15.8 percent decrease-- premium increases were passed along to employees for the second year in a row and employees were rewarded with the 1 month free premium, paid back to employees at the end of the year (November--just in time for holiday shopping Kopanis notes,--which created even more buy-in from spouses for the coming years). Dynamic Dies also offers free risk assessments for employees and its spouses, has continued to conduct informational/training meetings, has implemented the education process into new employee orientation, and more. Kopanis stresses that the attention you devote to communicating with and motivating employees--and their spouses--regarding
health care costs and the impact that their actions have on these costs must be unrelenting and ongoing. "I partnered with them and they partnered right back," she explains."