Evaluate and communicate health care benefits

Both employers and employees need appropriate information to make intelligent decisions about health care benefits. For employers, analysis of health care data offers an approach to monitoring quality care and can provide a tool for controlling costs. For employees, an education and communication strategy is probably the single most important factor influencing both program utilization and employee acceptance.     

Self-funding health insurance for small employers: is it the right way to go?

Self-funding offers small employers an alternative approach to providing health care benefits for their employees. It may not be appropriate for every small employer but, in situations where it is feasible, self-funding offers employers a way to get a measure of control over health care costs while providing the benefits employees expect.     

When Galatea cares about her reputation: How having faith in your workers reduces their motivation to shine

We develop a theory of leadership that focuses on the role managers play in motivating employees through their attitudes towards employees. We model a manager's attitude as her perception about employees' abilities of successfully completing challenging tasks. We show that a positive attitude motivates employees who are driven by monetary rewards. A negative attitude may motivate employees who are driven by concerns about their reputation for being able. When employees are driven by monetary rewards and care about their reputations, an increase in the reward for successfully completing challenging tasks may lead employees to shy away from these tasks.     

Why managed care has gone too far

Managed care has not solved employers' problems with rising health care costs; instead, it has created another set of problems, this author maintains. She suggests steps that employers can take to enhance the quality of health care for their employees and prevent further damage from the excesses of managed care.     

Allowing employees to pick the one "that's good for you"

Point-of-service plans offer advantages to be employers and employees as both groups seek affordable quality health care.     

Managing health care costs in the small business environment

Managed care is bringing down health care costs. But few small business employers find the time to manage their own health, much less that of their employees. Despite time constraints and other factors, small business employers need to embrace managed care. A critical first step is to encourage and support the implementation of important medical management initiatives.     

A guide to understanding long-term care insurance

Long-term care insurance is an increasingly popular benefit that has a number of advantages for both employers and employees. This coverage can protect employee assets and retirement savings and can be offered as a tax-free benefit if the plan is qualified. The premiums can be tax-deductible to employees, and the benefit is portable, since the policy is owned by the employee.     

The impact of horizontal mergers and acquisitions on cost and quality in health care

Mergers and acquisitions among HMOs, hospitals and other health care providers can be disconcerting to benefits staff and employees, but they can be successfully managed. They may offer an employer the opportunity to improve the quality of care provided and to do so at reduced costs.     

A revolutionary approach to health care cost control: leveraging the power of Web-enabled employee "consumerism"

The confluence of two trends--health care "consumerism" and employee self-service benefits programs--offers employers a promising opportunity for health care cost control. To take advantage of this opportunity, employers must take a fresh look at the health care cost dilemma and find ways to simultaneously offer employees a new kind of benefit and implement more effective cost-control measures.     

Psychiatric treatment programs: the continuous services model

With the inclusion of behavioral managed care in the design of many benefit plans, the delivery of psychiatric care has changed. The continuous services model offers advantages for both employers and employees who utilize mental health benefits.     

Does organizational ownership matter? Objectives of employees in public,nonprofit and for-profit nursing homes

Does organizational ownership matter for employees? We conducted a discrete choice experiment to reveal employees’ objectives in for-profit, nonprofit and governmental nursing homes. The results indicate that differences in objectives among nursing home staff are at least partially related to differences in ownership type. More specifically, we find that employees of public nursing homes are less extrinsically motivated than their for-profit and nonprofit counterparts. However, the results also show that employees of for-profit, nonprofit and governmental nursing homes are trading off output quality and output quantity differently, in line with the view that public providers of elderly care are pursuing a supplier-of-last-resort objective function.     

Affordable defined contribution health plans can help employers get through challenging times

Defined contribution health plans, modeled on defined contribution retirement plans, seem to be the wave of the future. At a time when employers and employees alike are trying to contain their health care costs, and employers fight to retain their workers, defined contribution health plans can provide solutions for both employers and employees. The health purchasing alliance model has met with success in both the small and mid-size market.     

Disease management primer: managing dollars by managing disease

The costliest participants to treat are those with chronic and serious, acute conditions that are often preventable. Developing programs aimed at patients with chronic conditions could be the key to getting control of health care costs. Disease management programs seek to alleviate some of this expense by better managing chronic illnesses and improving the overall health care of employees.     

Vision care: a compensation cornerstone

Vision care is a benefit that provides advantages for both employers and employees, and it has become an essential element of most competitive benefit packages. Well-designed vision care programs offer participants choice, options, self-help and value. An option that employers may want to consider is reduced prices on laser vision correction procedures.     

Access to Flexible Working and Informal Care

We use matched employer–employee data to explore the relationship between employees’ access to flexible working arrangements and the amount of informal care they provide to sick or elderly friends and relatives. Flexitime and the ability to reduce working hours are each associated with about 13% more hours of informal care. Workplaces do not respond to the presence of carers by providing flexible work, instead there is some underlying selection of carers into flexible workplaces. The wider workplace environment beyond formal flexible work may also facilitate care.     

Mildly ill/backup child care: a benefit for employees and employers

As the number of working parents continues to grow, many companies are shifting toward an environment that supports family needs. Mildly ill and backup child care are key tools that companies can use to recruit and retain employees as well as a way to curb unscheduled absences.     

Your employment brand: is it working for or against you?

The ability to attract and retain hard-to-find professionals is vitally connected to the perceptions of your organization both internally and externally. Many organizations confuse their employment brand with branding and all too often put considerable effort and often scarce resources against ineffective initiatives. Most health care organizations do not consistently allocate the necessary resources needed to build and sustain a strong employer brand. The relationship between employers and employees to and among each other and the values you strive for collectively are the cornerstones of your employment brand. It is imperative for nurse leaders to create and sustain an environment where employees are inherently positive and connected to their organization.     

Disease management programs--guidelines for employers

The new disease management programs hold a promise of successful drug maintenance and lower health care costs for participants with certain chronic medical conditions. These programs can benefit both employees and employers, but employers adopting them should take all the steps necessary to bring them under ERISA and to carefully monitor their operation.     

Effective workforce management starts with leveraging technology, while staffing optimization requires true collaboration

Effective staffing is at the very core of quality patient care. Staffing that achieves a balance between quality, safety, labor costs, and staff satisfaction is incredibly complex. Technology can make the complexity manageable and provide health care leaders with the tools to optimize their most valuable resource--their employees. Through such a partnership, the business intelligence brought forth will not only meet the unique needs and goals of each organization, but will also result in innovations and advancements in best practices around excellence in staffing.     

Characteristics of successful wellness programs

Wellness programs have proved to be an effective tool to use in reining in health care costs. This author describes successful wellness programs and shows that these programs not only improve the bottom line for employers or Taft-Hartley funds, but they also help employees feel better about themselves and more positive about the organization they work for.