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Monthly Archives

March 2018

Rising Healthcare Costs Make Self-Insurance More Attractive

By Healthcare

A new study from Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. reports that self-insurance is on the rise across the employer spectrum, including lower midsize, upper midsize and large employers. The rate of employers self-insuring has increased between 8 and 10 percent since 2016, the study found.

This trend is expected to continue as costs associated with traditional,fully-insured plans become prohibitively expensive, especially for small and midsize employers. The big benefit of self-insurance is the savings potential. Because employers pay the claims, they reap the benefit of low-claim years. Additionally there are also blended options, where employers can take on less risk and still benefit in low-claim years while minimizing risk in high-claim years.

Employers are also evaluating other options for cost-containment. Some of the tactics organizations expect to adopt by 2019 include cost-transparency tools, healthcare decision support and reference-based pricing for healthcare services. Bernard Health has more than a decade of experience helping employers adopt these and other strategies to create sustainable benefit plans.

In our experience, we’ve found that self-insuring is an option for employers with as few as 25 employees. Concerned your organization can’t withstand a bad month of claims, or worried about losing your insurance network? Learn more about why these self-insurance myths shouldn’t keep you from considering alternate funding methods here. Bernard Health clients also have access to BerniePortal, an industry-leading benefits and HR platform, which provides both cost-transparency and decision support tools to help employees make cost-effective decisions around their benefits. To learn more about how Bernard Health and BerniePortal and improve your benefits plan, click below.

3 Tips: Knowing Where To Go For Medical Care

By Medical Care No Comments

You can get health care in many different places, but it’s best to get routine care from a primary care doctor. Visiting your primary care doctor usually costs much less than visiting the emergency room, and you’ll spend less time waiting. Check out these 3 tips to know where to go for medical care:

Where to go based on the care you need

• For routine care, visit a primary care doctor: They’ll work with you to make sure you get the right preventive services, manage any chronic conditions, and improve your overall health and well-being.

• Before getting care, know you’re covered: Call the office before you visit to make sure they see patients with your coverage. Not all doctors and hospitals take all insurance plans or types of coverage. Learn about finding a doctor in your plan.

• In an emergency or life-threatening situation, call 9-1-1: In an emergency, get care from the closest hospital that can help you. They’ll treat you even if you don’t have any insurance. Get more information on knowing where to go for care