For human resource departments, there isn’t a more stressful time of year than open enrollment season. It seems that everyone has a love-hate relationship with employee benefits: employees demand great benefits, but when it comes time actually to learn about benefits they tune out. It’s not just you; Aflac did a survey and found that […]

The costs of healthcare benefits are expected to skyrocket to nearly $15,000 per employee per year according to the National Business Group on Health. To maintain a competitive benefits package over the coming years, companies need to ask themselves one question: How are we containing healthcare costs? Companies actually have a lot of control in […]

What is Telemedicine? Before we talk about High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) and why telemedicine is treated differently under those plans, let’s discuss what’s telemedicine. Telemedicine, what we call a more consumer-friendly “online medical consultations,” is the ability of medical professionals to evaluate, diagnose and treat patients through the use of  telecommunication technology (via video […]

It seems that everyone these days is throwing around the terms “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning.” Companies without a single programmer on staff are issuing press releases touting artificial intelligence (AI) as if the term were fairy dust that could magically improve their product. But what are AI and machine learning, and how is it […]

It may feel like second nature to review your cell phone, credit card, and internet bill for mistakes. Reviewing your medical bill, however, often feels like a near-impossible task. They are notoriously indecipherable and written with confusing codes, leaving you unsure of what you’re being charged for, how much is due, and where to get […]

If you ask today’s job hunters to describe what they want from employee benefits in three words, they might say; flexibility, mobility, and security. The job market of today is becoming more diverse and increasingly occupied by millennials. The latest wave of employees isn’t satisfied by default, cookie-cutter benefits package that a company has been […]

Common Misconceptions About Captive Insurance Captive insurance and the way firms advertise it can seem mysterious. In reality, captives are not all that different from self-insuring. By creating and owning its own captive insurance company, any firm can insure the health risks and other unknown expenses of their employees. In doing so, firms reap countless […]

In a previous blog post, we investigated why drug costs are rising, and what employers and patients can do about it. It seems unbelievable, but the monthly cost of supplying some of these drugs costs more than the average car. Here are the most expensive drugs, listed in order of cost for a one-month prescription: […]

Have you ever noticed that buying healthcare is unlike buying anything else in the U.S.? It’s an entirely different experience from going to the shopping mall or the car dealership. In many ways, it’s the absolute opposite experience from what we expect as consumers of nearly every other service. When shopping for common medical treatment […]

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is reshaping the way we think about healthcare and reducing unnecessary waste from all corners of the industry. There are endless possibilities for AI to improve healthcare, from quickly processing large patient data sets through machine learning to Google’s AR microscope detecting a cancer cell that would otherwise go […]

With so much conversation surrounding the broken U.S. healthcare system, we often overlook what this brokenness means for patients themselves. Our patchwork system of insurance carriers, TPAs, employers, brokers, and private doctors and facilities translates into a messy patient experience. Healthcare’s different players don’t communicate or collaborate over a single unified platform, which means patients […]