10 Tips for Redesigning Your Healthcare Plan

By Chris Ceplenski, Senior Editor

Beaumont Hospitals, an employer of about 12,000 full-time employees in the Detroit area had an aging workforce with a declining health status, and needed a redesign of its health care offerings in order to contain costs. They estimated that at the current rate at which costs were escalating, every dollar the hospital generated in revenue over the coming 6 years was going to be spent on healthcare.

Maureen Cotter, a consultant with MCA Inc., explained to her audience yesterday at the 19 th Annual Benefits Management Forum & Expo in Chicago, Illinois, that she worked with the hospital to formulate and implement a plan that would contain costs while avoid cutting value to employees.

They drew up objectives that included 1) investing in employee health to control rising costs and improve productivity and 2) increasing a sense of shared responsibility between the hospital and employees (to make it less paternalistic) as well as increase shared opportunities for improving employee health and well-being.

Beaumont created a multi-year strategy for redesigning their plan, which included a paradigm shift from "choice-based paternalism" to "shared responsibility with shared opportunity", Cotter explain