Care to guess what the most complicated consumer industry in the world is? If you guessed “healthcare,” you’d be correct. Add to that the fact the U.S. has the highest spend of healthcare of all economically developed countries in the world and a staggering rate of obesity, and you could say we (and by we, I mean employers) are facing a huge problem. And it’s being noticed. Employers are frustrated; they don’t believe they’re getting the right information and data to help them better understand why their health insurance costs continue to rise and the health of their population continues to deteriorate.

As a result, the principle of “pooling” is becoming more popular than ever and everyone is scrambling to find the answer. But simply banding together isn’t good enough. The belief that “bigger is better” simply isn’t true.

Let me explain why.

If you’re fully insured, a significant part of your renewal is already pooled with other employers during the underwriting process. You just don’t know who they are or what they’re doing to control their risk. Think of it as two different types of employer pools:

• The “I don’t care” pool. This pool comes with this state of mind: “I feel comfortable being a part of 100s of groups who don’t mandate screenings or ask their unhealthy population to improve their risk where they can, etc.” These groups of employers plan to stick with the insurance program they’re with, because they’re already in a pool.
• The “I care” pool. This pool comes with this state of mind: “I want to do all I can to lower costs. I want to find disease early. I want my employees to look for the best doctors. I want to offer programs to improve health, etc.” If you’re in this pool, then the rest of this blog is for you.

For those of you in the “I care” pool, there’s good news.

At Holmes Murphy, we have a long history of building successful pools…and we have the results to back it up. And because of this, our teams are in a constant state of analyzing and developing programs that will work in our markets and for the employers we serve. Most recently, we’ve been working on a program available to employers in Iowa and South Dakota with between 51 and 500 employees.

Now, you may be saying, “This all sounds great, but I need to know more. What makes this plan/pool better than others?” Well…

• You know who is in the pool with you and aren’t having to subsidize the poor risk of others.
• The program has assembled best-in-class health improvement programs integrated into the offering, such as biometric screenings, age-appropriate screenings, an incentive Web tracking portal, personal health concierge, and enhanced plan performance reporting that provides better information to help make better decisions.
• All employers accepted into the plan believe they can make a difference and are committed to swimming in a cleaner pool.

Now let’s talk results.

While this program is new to Iowa and South Dakota, it has followed the same principles of other proprietary pools within Holmes Murphy that have been around for several years. Had you been located in Texas and joined the Holmes Murphy Healthy Insurance Pool back in 2014, your medical claims cost would be 20 percent lower today. That’s the experience of those employers. Despite rising costs, their medical claims costs are running 31.2 percent below the book of business norms of the insurance company. They’re finding cancer sooner. They’re avoiding heart attacks. And, they’re helping prevent diabetes within their employee population.

We don’t believe “bigger is better.” We KNOW “better is better.”

What Holmes Murphy does is very simple. We save time, money, and lives. We save employers time by reducing the complexity of healthcare. You save money because nobody wants to pay more for healthcare. And most importantly, we save lives by measurably improving health.

If you’re interested in talking more about this program available for Iowa and South Dakota employers or are in another state and wondering if we have something brewing for you, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to talk about what we’ve got going on, the results, and how we can help you!