Keeping employees both engaged and focused on their work requires an authentic interest in who they are as both employee and human being. We believe these 5 tips are the key:

1 – Set specific, measurable goals

The single most impactful thing you can do to help employees stay focused despite the daily evolution of their role in your company is to establish transparent, measurable goals that help them determine the best way to spend their time every day. In order for goals to achieve the desired result – improved focus among employees – they should be SMART. That is, specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and timebound.

If it’s in the budget and your goals are truly measurable, you can even tie bonus compensation to goal achievement, but that’s not a critical component.

2 – Measure, evaluate, and report key performance indicators

One of the best ways to motivate employees to focus in the right area is to establish key performance indicators, measure them frequently (almost constantly), and keep an open dialogue regarding what these numbers are indicating and what barriers are preventing improvement.

For maximum employee buy-in, include your team members when you determine the most important KPIs to measure, why they’re important, and what they’ll tell you about performance. Include employees in the measurement of KPIs and the problem-solving that should follow; ask them why they think the numbers have increased, decreased or stayed the same; what obstacles they’ve run into in their daily work; and what ideas they have for improving the results during the measurement period.

3 – Provide benefits that ease stress and promote health and wellness

The ultimate goal behind the tremendous investment you make in employee benefits is to take better care of your employees. All this, of course, is not without return; employees who are happy and healthy bring focus and productivity to the job, which increase your ROI on each hire. Consider these options for improving employee health and wellness:

• Offer a competitive paid leave package to encourage time away from work (see #5)
• Look into tools like FairPrice, that can make reference-based pricing plans more convenient for your employees by giving them the information they need, such as which doctors they can go to and exactly what they can expect to pay
• Offer an EAP like those administered by Magellan Health Services and CIGNA Behavioral Health, which can help your employees take care of their emotional health by offering the support they need to face challenging life situations

4 – Acknowledge effort and results

The most motivating move an employer or manager can make is acknowledging, complimenting, and rewarding employees for the effort they put forth and the results they achieve. These acknowledgements don’t have to be monetary (as a matter of fact, they often mean more when they’re not) and they don’t have to be life-altering. Simply acknowledging a job well done often goes further than free lunch and free loot combined!

5 – Encourage time away from work

Almost all employers offer time away from work, but many fail to offer guilt-free time away from work. One of the most important ways to encourage employees to take care of their personal needs so they can focus at work is to not only offer time away from work but encourage your team members to take time to rest and recuperate without guilt. Sometimes this means approving time off without non-verbal body language that sends the message that it’s not really approved, and other times it means letting employees know that you recognize they’re stressed and encouraging them to spend some time away from work, with pay and without apology.

In conclusion, keeping employees focused is well within your wheelhouse as a company, a manager, or an HR professional. With dedication and effort, you can provide your employees with everything they need to care for themselves first so they can be the best version of themselves while they’re on the clock.

As an HR professional, you’re charged with not only maintaining benefits that are competitive and meaningful but also staying within budget for your department. Staying within budget is often the most challenging aspect of the human resource professional’s role; after all, competitive benefits come at a price.

Here, we share 4 ways to keep creeping HR costs low:

#1 Avoid recruiters unless your life depends on it

Recruiters aren’t unicorns; they aren’t doing anything you can’t do yourself, but they charge up to 30% of an employee’s annual salary just for sending them your way. Avoid using recruiters by utilizing online platforms like LinkedIn instead. Build your own network of candidates and stay in touch quarterly with a social media posts, a brief email sharing open positions, company news, recent achievements, or just friendly greetings.

LinkedIn can help you maintain and organize your pipeline, but you might find that you keep the same level of detail in your records using a program that you already have access to like Microsoft Excel.

#2 When it comes to health insurance, think outside the box

Balance billing is expensive and unpredictable, leading to the kind of HR costs that creep up on you and leave you choosing between pulling benefits or going over budget. FairPrice is one great solution to reduce your spending on health insurance in three primary ways:

1. They utilize reference-based pricing, which ensures you know exactly what to expect and can set firm limits on employer spending
2. Making reference-based pricing easier on the employer by answering employee questions, directing them to the right healthcare providers, and provide the benefits support that usually comes from the HR department
3. By mitigating the risk of surprise balance bills by offering Balance Bill Indemnity Insurance, so your employees don’t have to take on extra risk just so the company can manage their budget

#3 Address productivity

Remember that the HR budget depends on productivity and efficiency, so staying within budget doesn’t always have to mean cutting costs if you can increase revenue per employee. There are several ways you can increase your return on investment without putting more funds into it:

• Promote cross-functionality, which allows certain employees to move fluidly between roles to accommodate the ebb and flow of your industry. This ensures that you don’t have to overstaff your departments to satisfy the most demanding day of the year and then adjust to the cost of overstaffing the rest of the year.
• Conduct periodic employee engagement surveys and thoroughly evaluate the results. Establish a continuous improvement plan based on the information your employees have shared – which is rarely monetary. Do they feel challenged and appreciated? Do they know what’s going on in the company? These fixes can increase productivity with little monetary investment.

#4 Never get too comfortable

You wouldn’t buy a house without viewing at least a few options, right? As a matter of fact, if you’re like most people, you wouldn’t even buy a new printer without comparing a few different models. Likewise, you shouldn’t spend thousands of dollars on employee benefits without evaluating multiple options.

Never commit to staying with the same company just because it’s easy or you’re satisfied. Every time you renew the benefits that generate your biggest expenses, it’s important to get at least three proposals and compare your options. This ensures that you’re always getting the best price for the best products, and even if you’re not open to changing providers, competitive quotes might be just the ammunition you need to negotiate down your rates.

Put together a business case (you can find some great templates by conducting a quick Google search) comparing all of your options to ensure – and prove to the C-Suite – that every dollar is well spent.

Key Takeaways

Be creative and open-minded to keep your HR expenditures within budget despite the rising cost of benefits and talent.

With reference-based pricing (RBP) from FairPrice, accessing health coverage information no longer requires navigating a labyrinth of documents and phone calls. To find out what medical providers participate in your plan and how much care will cost, all you have to do is reach for your phone or log onto your computer. For, FairPrice is ushering RBP into the digital age by making plan information readily accessible online. Here are two benefits this has.

Access to Coverage Information from Anywhere

First, bringing coverage information online gives plan participants unprecedented access to coverage information. They can access it from anywhere they have an internet connection and at any time they like. While patients have previously had access to their coverage information, the information hasn’t always been easy to get to.

Many traditional health insurance companies send out thick books or long PDF documents whenever a plan renews. These technically may contain everything participants need to know about their health insurance plan, but many participants never read them. The documents are frequently lengthy and littered with technical jargon. More often than not, they’re simply set aside to be either forgotten or discarded.

In contrast, FairPrice’s online platform gives participants the precise information they need when they need it. Rather than remembering where a document that was sent several months ago is now, participants just need to log onto the platform when they need information. On the platform, participants can see:

• what providers in the area participate in their plan
• where providers’ practices are located
• how providers are rated for the care they offer
• how much each provider tends to charge compared to the market average

This last piece of information, how much providers charge, often isn’t available through traditional health insurance plans until after a service is provided. Even if participants who have traditional health insurance manage to navigate through the labyrinth of plan documents and phone numbers, they normally still can’t find out what they’ll need to pay for care until after an appointment.

Access to Coverage Information More Quickly

Second, providing coverage information through an online platform lets participants access their coverage information more quickly than they have been able to in the past. FairPrice isn’t the first company to facilitate reference-based pricing plans, and other RBP providers have given patients access to the above-listed information (including cost of care). FairPrice, however, provides much faster access to these details.

The vast majority of RBP providers continue to rely on third-party administrators (TPAs) to help administer coverage plans. When participants have questions about their coverage, they typically call a TPA who then provides the information they want.

Getting all relevant details from a TPA, however, can take a half-hour or more. After navigating a phone tree and waiting on hold, participants talk with someone who’s usually not in their local area. The representative can look up medical providers’ specialties, locations and fees, but each one must be checked individually. Because the representative normally doesn’t live in the area, it may take several tries to find the best provider.

A back-and-forth with someone who isn’t local is always frustrating. It’s only more stressful when you’re sick or have an imminent medical need.

FairPrice takes a different approach by making all of this information readily available online to participants through an online platform. Participants can check a map and list of area providers, and they can see the details they need at a glance. The whole process takes minutes, as participants know exactly what to look for and are familiar with the area.

Bring Your Health Coverage into the Digital Age

A few years ago, medical providers were required by law to transition from paper to electronic files because electronic format is easier to access and share.

It’s time for health coverage providers to follow suit and make their plan details readily available to participants through intuitive online platforms. This is the best way to give participants easy and fast access to the coverage information they need when they most need it. This, also, is precisely what FairPrice does. To learn more about setting up an online-accessible RBP, contact a representative at FairPrice.

 

RBP Benefit 7: FairPrice help you Avoid Government Penalties

 

Reference-based pricing offers many benefits over traditional health insurance options. Perhaps most importantly, though, reference-based pricing health coverage plans can be designed to meet current Affordable Care Act requirements. Additionally, they’ll likely continue to be compatible with any future changes in the nation’s healthcare laws. Both of these are important considerations for any company considering a reference-based pricing plan, and any human resources directors leading their companies towards this type of health coverage.

(This seventh and final installment completes a reference-based pricing series that’s designed for human resources professionals.)

 

FairPrice Provides Sufficient Access to Coverage

 

The Affordable Care Act requires health coverage plans to provide employees with sufficient access to coverage. In other words, employers aren’t able to claim they offer employees health coverage but only provide access to just a few potential providers. Health coverage plans must actually give employees the ability to obtain medical care.

 

Some employers have delayed switching from a traditional health insurance policy to a reference-based pricing plan because they’re afraid they won’t be able to provide sufficient access to care. This is an unfounded fear, though.

 

Reference-based pricing plans can be set up to give employees plenty of access to coverage — in some cases, they provide even more access than traditional health insurance policies do. Moreover, third-party agents can take care of finding providers who will participate in a plan, so employers don’t have to worry about building a network themselves.

 

FairPrice Limits Employees’ Out-of-Pocket Expenses

 

The Affordable Care Act also requires health coverage plans to limit employees’ out-of-pocket expenses.  

This also is possible to do with a reference-based pricing plan. For example, contracts can be used to prevent employees from being balance-billed. Additionally, caps can be placed on how much employees can expect to spend on medical providers who have contracted using a reference based transparent price.  (The Affordable Care Act excludes out-of-network expenses from out-of-pocket limits.)  In this way, should an employee choose a provider not contracted the employee can expect to pay more.

 

FairPrice + RBP Will Continue to Meet Legal Standards

 

In the current political climate, it’s impossible to know what future health coverage requirements employers will be required to meet. If any changes are made to the healthcare laws, though, reference-based pricing plans will adjust and provide additional clarity while meeting all legal standards. These plans are becoming more and more popular, and many industry experts believe they could have a positive effect on the industry. Therefore, lawmakers will probably continue to take RBP plans into account when formulating any new laws.

 

Meeting any legal requirements is, naturally, a major concern for all companies. It’s also, therefore, a concern for human resource professionals who help their employers find health coverage plans.

To find out how FairPrice’s reference-based pricing models meet current legal requirements and may be adapted in the future, contact us to speak with a representative.

 

RBP Benefit 6: 4 Ways RBP is Saving Companies Money

 

Traditional health insurance policies’ premiums continue to increase year after year, but reference-based pricing offers an antidote to ever-rising health coverage costs. By fundamentally changing how healthcare costs are determined and paid, reference-based pricing promises to drive down expenses over time. This will benefit employers and employees, who together share the costs of health coverage. Human resources representatives who are instrumental in the transition also stand to benefit.

 

(This is the sixth installment in a seven-part series on how reference-based pricing benefits human resources representatives. While this installment focuses on long-term trends, Part 5 looked at the immediate financial benefit RBP plans can have.)

 

1. Reference-Based Pricing Provides Transparency

 

First and foremost, reference-based pricing provides greater transparency than traditional health insurance plans do. Providers who join RBP plans clearly state how much they charge for the medical services they provide, and all participating providers’ fees are typically listed in a plan database.

Employees are given access to the database, so they can see how much their medical care will cost before they have procedures done. The database also serves as a region-wide resource on the average cost of various medical procedures.

 

With this level of transparency, medical providers aren’t able to charge above-market rates. It becomes clear whether any providers are charging too much, and employees can easily choose a different participating provider whose fees are in line with the regional rates.

 

2. Reference-Based Pricing Brings Market Competition

 

As providers’ fees are shared, employees are able to compare what different providers charge. This introduces competition into the healthcare field. This is something that has long been lacking, thanks to traditional health insurance’s opaque billing practices. Furthermore, it’s made the secretive world of health cost discounting, which takes place between health insurance companies and healthcare providers, worse.

 

Introducing competition among providers will provide financial benefits for employees who need medical care. As providers are forced to competitively price their services, the market will push healthcare costs lower. It’s possible that reference-based pricing competition not only slows the increase in medical costs — but can reverse the upward trend.

 

3. Reference-Based Pricing Will Become Increasingly Powerful

 

Reference-based pricing is still a growing health coverage model. As it’s adopted by more and more employers, it’s ability to provide transparency and competition will only become greater. In the coming years, RBP may become one of the most powerful forces in the health coverage industry.

 

4. Human Resources Representatives Are on the Forefront of RBP

 

Reference-based pricing is an industry-wide revolution and, as such, involves many different groups. One of the groups that’s playing a pivotal role right now are human resources representatives. Often overlooked in favor of other players in the health coverage space, HR representatives are the people currently helping their companies understand the benefits of RBP. In doing so, they’re simply doing their job — being resources who help their employers care for their employees.

 

If you’re in human resources and would like to learn more about how reference-based pricing could help your particular company, contact us at FairPrice. We’d love to learn more about your company and share how RBP might help in more detail.

RBP Benefit 5: Protect your employees from high insurance costs

 

As healthcare expenses continue to rise, both employers and employees are becoming increasingly wary of how much health coverage costs. Solutions like reference-based pricing that offer cost savings hold a lot of promise for both employers and employees. These aren’t the only parties who benefit from the savings provided by reference-based pricing, though. Human resources representatives also benefit.

 

(This is the fifth installment in a seven-part series on how reference-based pricing benefits human resources representatives.)

 

The Old Way: Traditional Health Insurance Offers Little Protection from High Costs

 

Traditional health insurance policies offer employers and employees little protection from high costs.

Employers may know how much the policy they offer will cost for a year, but there’s almost no way to accurately predict how much premiums will increase when a policy’s up for renewal (and premiums nearly always increase).

 

Employees, meanwhile, often don’t know how much they’ll end up paying for a procedure. In some cases, they don’t even know if a procedure is covered until their provider submits a bill to their insurer.

 

The New Way: Reference-Based Pricing Offers Upper Limits on Expenses

 

One of the ways reference-based pricing save employers and employees money is by placing upper limits on how much employers and employees spend on health coverage.  

 

When setting up a reference-based pricing plan, employers determine the reimbursements they’ll provide for various medical procedures. Not only are they in control of how much they might pay in the current year, but they also get to decide whether to increase, decrease or maintain their reimbursements in coming years. Employers are in control of their own financial costs and not subject to the decisions of a health insurance company.

 

Employees, meanwhile, can be protected from providers who would overcharge for medical services.

 

Well-designed reference-based pricing plans often include contracts that prevent providers from “balance billing” employees for charges above an employer’s reimbursement rate. With such agreements in place, employees still have to pay all required copayments and coinsurances, but they aren’t subject to exorbitant fees beyond what the contract allows for. Moreover, it’s clearly stated what a provider’s charges and employee’s responsibilities are.

 

The Result: Reducing Costs Benefits Human Resources Representatives

 

Reducing health coverage expenses by switching to a reference-based pricing model, obviously, benefits the two parties that pay for health coverage. It also has advantages for human resources representatives, though. Executives will be pleased anytime a human resources representative is able to save their company money. Employees will also be happy, which will lead to fewer complaints and questions directed at human resources representatives who are responsible for explaining a company’s health coverage.

RBP Benefit 4: Streamline your Company’s Health Insurance Process

 

Coordinating health coverage and medical care necessarily involves multiple parties. Traditional health insurance policies, however, involve one more party than there has to be — health insurance company managed care networks (i.e. PPO). By eliminating the need for health insurers networks, reference-based pricing streamlines health coverage and makes many people’s lives a little easier. One of the parties that benefits from this increased efficiency are human resources representatives.

 

(This is the fourth installment in a seven-part series on the benefits reference-based pricing has for human resources representatives.)

 

The Old Way: Traditional Health Insurance Plans Have Middlemen

 

Traditional health insurance plans necessarily involve health insurance company managed care networks. There’s no way to get a standard health insurance policy without talking to an insurer, as they’re the ones that provide plans.

 

Health insurers when it comes to negotiating doctor reimbursements, however, are little more than middlemen. In fact, they’re right in the middle of everyone involved in health coverage and medical care. Insurers are between:

 

• employers and employees, as they underwrite the policies employers purchase and employees have
• employees and providers, as they determine what procedures are covered and how much is paid to providers for those services
• employers and providers, as they determine what providers are part of an employer’s plans network

 

Going between all these groups isn’t necessarily bad, for health coverage is a complex matter that frequently requires specialized knowledge. Health insurers don’t just coordinate between all of these parties, though. They take an active role in negotiations, and they often are the driving force behind coverage decisions.

 

The New Way: Reference-Based Pricing Doesn’t Need Health Insurers

 

Reference-based pricing works very differently from traditional health insurance policies. Instead of having an insurer determine what providers are in a network, what procedures are covered and how much a policy costs, these decisions are made directly by employers and providers. Employers choose how much to reimburse providers, and providers decide whether to participate in an employer’s RBP plan.

 

Most employers choose to work with a third-party administrator when setting up a reference-based pricing plan, but a third party administrator is not an insurer. They don’t provide the plan, and they don’t make the decisions about the plan. They’re simply available to provide specialized knowledge when necessary and to carry out the logistics of executing the health plan on behalf of the employer. For example, they can help an employer find providers that will participate in an RBP plan — but they don’t actually decide what providers are included.

 

The Result: Human Resources Representatives Don’t Have to Talk with Insurers

 

By eliminating any need for a middleman, reference-based pricing makes human resources representatives’ jobs easier. HR representatives are frequently heavily involved in setting up, promoting and maintaining a company’s health coverage. Replacing a middleman with an assistant reduces how many parties HR representatives must go between, and it gives them a useful resource for when they have questions.

RBP Benefit 3: Happier Employees

 

Health benefits significantly affect how employees view their compensation packages, but the cost of traditional health insurance is often too much for employers to bear. In order to meet employees’ expectations for health insurance and still run a financially viable business, employers frequently shift some health care costs to employees. This almost always upsets employees, as human resources representatives can attest to. Reference-based pricing is a different model that can help solve this problem, and reduce how many complaints HR representatives hear about the cost of health insurance their employers offer.

 

(This is the third in a seven-part series on the benefits reference-based pricing has for human resources representatives.)

 

The Old Way: Employees Hate Paying High Health Insurance Premiums

 

When employees are promised health insurance during a job interview or onboarding process, they expect their new employer to pay most of their health insurance plan’s premiums. When an employer shifts a significant portion of the costs to employees, employees often feel betrayed. They can feel unappreciated by their employer, and they may even get mad at the human resources representative who initially promised them health insurance but didn’t fully delineate their portion of the cost.

 

Not only do employees feel angry and betrayed, but they also frequently become frustrated. Traditional health insurance is an opaque industry, and few employees understand why their health insurance costs are what they are. Without a clear explanation of why they pay the premiums they’re charged, health insurance can exacerbate employees more than it appeases them.

 

The New Way: Reference Based Pricing Offers Lower Costs and Transparency

 

Reference-based pricing directly addresses the cost problems that come with traditional health insurance plans in two ways.

 

1. First, reference-based pricing offers lower overall costs for both employers and employees. By introducing cost comparison tool for employees to use, RBP plans force providers to competitively price their services. This drives down healthcare costs, which is something both employers and employees appreciate.
2. Second, reference-based pricing offers a simple and transparent pricing model. Employees are told how much their employers will reimburse for different medical procedures, and they can find out how much participating providers charge for those procedures. With these two figures, employees know exactly how much they’ll need to pay for procedures — and they understand both the costs and the amount their employer is contributing.

 

All of this can be accomplished without sacrificing coverage or quality of care, for reference-based pricing plans can be set up to provide as robust a benefit plan as desired.

 

The Result: Employees Are More Satisfied with Their Health Insurance Coverage

 

Reference-based pricing’s benefits leave employees more satisfied with the health insurance coverage they receive. This, of course, increases how highly they view their compensation package.  

It also results in fewer complaints about a company’s health insurance coverage being filed with human resources representatives. Instead of hearing complaints and trying to defend a company’s expensive health insurance plan, HR representatives can instead invest their time into making sure employees take full advantage of their health benefits.

 

RBP Benefit 2: Simplified Billing that Everyone Can Understand

 

Reference-based pricing works on a simple system. Before receiving medical care, employees find out the following: how much a provider will charge, how much their employer will reimburse and how much they’ll have to pay. Compared to the bloated billing system that health insurance companies use today, reference-based pricing is remarkably straightforward. The simplicity that RBP plans offer helps employees manage their medical expenses, but it doesn’t only benefit employees. It also benefits human resources representatives.

 

(This is the second in a seven-part series that focuses on how human resources representatives benefit from reference-based pricing plans.)

 

The Old Way: Employees Ask Human Resources Representatives About Health Insurance Bills

 

The convoluted and confusing medical coding system that traditional health insurance companies rely on costs everyone time. Even small questions can take hours to answer, and major issues may not be sorted out for days or weeks.

 

While most medical billing issues are addressed by providers, patients and insurers, they can also take up human resource representatives’ time. When employees have questions about medical bills they receive, they sometimes come to HR department representatives.

 

Even though answering medical billing questions is often technically outside the scope of an HR representative’s job, employees may expect them to help address the issue at hand. Depending on an employee’s question, this may involve:

 

• providing a quick answer
• researching and finding a more detailed answer
• getting the contact information for someone else who can provide an answer

 

No matter what needs to be done, helping employees get answers to their medical billing questions takes time — and it often takes more than it should.

 

The New Way: Employees Have Fewer Questions About Reference-Based Pricing Billing

 

Reference-based pricing, in contrast, makes understanding medical billing easy. Before they go for a procedure, employees can know the average cost of a procedure and where their provider lies on that scale. It’s incredibly easy to pick a doctor who charges significantly less than the local average!

 

As a result, employees are much less likely to come to human resources representatives with complex questions about their medical bills. HR Representatives will still receive the occasional question, but they’ll get fewer questions. Additionally, those they receive will be more straightforward and easier to answer.

 

The Result: Human Resources Representatives Can Spend Time on Other Tasks

 

With reference-based pricing, human resources representatives won’t have to spend nearly as much time addressing medical billing questions. Instead, they’ll have the time needed to be a true HR representative, and not just a health insurance detective or liaison.

To learn more about reference-based pricing and how billing works, contact FairPrice. One of our representatives will gladly explain the RBP billing system, and you won’t have to take a course to understand it.

RBP Benefit 1: No more Negotiating with Health Insurance Companies

 

When compared to traditional health insurance, reference-based pricing (RBP) has many advantages. Its benefits for employers and employees are well documented, but the benefits that reference-based pricing offers human resources representatives are less widely covered. Here’s a look at one of the benefits that RBP offers HR directors and representatives — the opportunity to stop negotiating with health insurance companies.

 

(This is the first in a seven-part series that focuses on how human resources representatives benefit from reference-based pricing plans.)

 

The Old Way: Negotiating with Health Insurers is an Annual Obligation

 

Human resources representatives frequently serve as their companies’ liaisons to health insurers, which means they’re often the ones who interact with insurers the most. For many HR representatives, this responsibility includes negotiating with health insurance providers. They can expect to:

 

• negotiate rates with insurers when first signing the company up for a plan
• re-negotiate rates when a plan’s up for renewal and its premiums increase
• negotiate rates with a different insurer if a plan’s premiums increase too much and a new policy must be selected

 

These negotiations are so regular that some representatives who handle the bulk of this work for their company can pencil in an annual negotiation on their yearly calendars, much as they would for a regular family vacation.

 

The New Way: Reference-Based Pricing Doesn’t Require Negotiations

 

Reference-based pricing eliminates the role of traditional health insurance companies. As a result, human resources representatives don’t have to spend time every year haggling over premiums with insurers. Instead, they can focus on helping employees understand their coverage, helping train new employees and other HR responsibilities.

 

Reference-based pricing does require setting reimbursement rates for procedures, and HR representatives are frequently involved in this work. This is much different from a negotiation, though.  

Under a reference-based pricing model, employers determine their reimbursement rates with the help of a third-party who specializes in reference based pricing plans. The rates are usually set as a percentage Medicare’s reimbursement rate, which makes them easy to set. Once rates are set, the third-party can assist providers who will offer care at those rates.  

 

The result isn’t a back-and-forth between two opposing parties, but rather a cooperative relationship between an employer and a third-party agent who’s available to provide assistance. It’s a much smoother, and often faster, process.

 

The Result: Human Resources Representatives Save Time

 

The end result is that human resources departments save time. The hours, days or weeks they normally spend going back-and-forth with insurers can now be devoted to actual HR duties, like helping employees. Instead of being negotiators, representatives get to actually become resources again.

 

To learn more about setting up a reference-based pricing plan, including how long it takes, contact us at FairPrice. Even if your company isn’t ready to renegotiate its health insurance plan right now, one of our representatives would be happy to explain the process of setting up an RBP so you know how long it would take when the time comes.