Telemedicine became an essential technological tool in the healthcare industry amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone’s interactions were restricted, including health patients with pressing needs and their dedicated healthcare providers.

Fortunately, telemedicine was already in place before the pandemic, available to meet the needs of people in rural areas and in other complicated situations where an office visit didn’t work.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), however, telemedicine in the U.S. hadn’t taken off before COVID-19. The interest was minimal. But the pandemic changed everything, opening the healthcare community’s and patients’ eyes to the immense value of remote patient services.

Many patients and healthcare providers are now taking the time to learn more about what telemedicine means in terms of private insurance and Medicare coverage.

As your organization’s benefits manager, it might help to take a deeper look at the now fast-rising telemedicine trend and its vast potential benefits for the healthcare industry, patients, and employers.

Engaging a professional employer organization (PEO) — sometimes known as an employee leasing service — has become an important strategy for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) across the United States over the past three decades. With 907 PEOs in the U.S. employing 3.7 million people, PEOs have become a reliable staple in the business world, helping more than 175,000 SMBs enjoy impressive rates of growth in brief time frames.  

Traditionally, benefits engagement has existed in a bubble for most companies. The typical timeframe for open enrollment is November 1 through January 15, and then the window closes until the following year.

But even though you might need to comply with the timeframe in the technical sense, you might want to expand year-round benefits engagement with your valued employees.

Maybe you and your HR team have considered trying to find ways to keep the conversation going long into the new year until the next official window opens. With this approach, you can foster a healthy relationship and more robust communication. Best of all, you can help your employees increase their benefits knowledge and confidence so that they can make the best decisions for the next open enrollment period.

Telemedicine became an essential technological tool in the healthcare industry amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone’s interactions were restricted, including health patients with pressing needs and their dedicated healthcare providers.

Fortunately, telemedicine was already in place before the pandemic, available to meet the needs of people in rural areas and in other complicated situations where an office visit didn’t work.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), however, telemedicine in the U.S. hadn’t taken off before COVID-19. The interest was minimal. But the pandemic changed everything, opening the healthcare community’s and patients’ eyes to the immense value of remote patient services.

Many patients and healthcare providers are now taking the time to learn more about what telemedicine means in terms of private insurance and Medicare coverage.

As your organization’s benefits manager, it might help to take a deeper look at the now fast-rising telemedicine trend and its vast potential benefits for the healthcare industry, patients, and employers.

Approximately 93% of fathers and 72% of mothers make up the U.S. workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because many of the men and women who are not currently parents will be at some point, family-friendly benefits are essential to offer as part of an organization’s employee value proposition.

However, in 2018, only 17% of workers had access to paid family leave, leaving approximately 80% of American workers without. Furthermore, 93% of low-wage workers who are in the bottom quarter of wage earners have no access to paid family leave, and 94% of part-time workers have no access to paid family leave.

Nearly all 193 countries in the United Nations offer paid parental leave to its citizens; the United States is one of the rare exceptions. The United States is also the only country out of the 41 in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union that does not mandate some level of parental leave benefits for employees.

While these statistics paint an unfortunate picture for the U.S. workforce, competitive companies often offer paid parental leave – and for good reason. In the following content, we explore the history of paid leave in the U.S. and discuss the top 5 benefits of offering this competitive benefit.

Let’s dive in!

Financial wellness matters to employees. Unfortunately, however, a large portion of the workforce is not financially healthy. From an overload of debt to living paycheck to paycheck, individuals often struggle to maintain financial balance and make ends meet. When employees stress about finances, that stress doesn’t check itself at the office door when the employee arrives at work. Financial stress impacts an employee’s ability to do her job, which can lower productivity and eventually affect the bottom line.

Financial stress can harm mental and physical health. In the American Psychological Association’s 2019 Stress in America survey, 60% of respondents reported money as a significant stressor, which has been recorded at a similar level for the past few years. In a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, 40% of employees said they spent three or more hours dealing with personal finances weekly, and 56% of employees revealed that they experience financial stress. Money management and financial stress are also cited as top reasons why many married couples file for divorce. These stats partly indicate why so many employees seek out employers that have a well-rounded benefits package with some type of retirement savings plan.  

Employee benefits matter. They affect work productivity, employee retention, morale, health, and your ability to attract and hire candidates. In the 2018 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) job satisfaction and engagement survey, 92% of employees surveyed indicated that employee benefits were linked to their overall job satisfaction. Almost one-third of the employees noted that their current benefits package was one reason why they would possibly look for another position in the upcoming 12 months.

Indeed, compensation is a key factor when candidates are considering different job offers. Many candidates, however, will take a job with lower pay if it has a comprehensive, high-quality benefits package.

Goal setting is important for employees at any level within an organization, and it is the responsibility of leadership and managers to ensure that they work with employees to set goals on a regular basis. Goals provide the road map of where an employee wants to go in his or her position, which should also align with what are the organization’s expectations of the employee.

Further, goal setting engages employees in their short- and long-term success, as well as the short- and long-term success of the company. Therefore, assuming that the employee is actively achieving goals that align with work expectations, goal setting increases productivity. Goal setting also boosts employee engagement, which ties to employee well-being and morale.

Formal goal setting, such as during the annual performance review process, provides the necessary legal documentation for performance improvement plans and performance-related terminations. Also, referring back to documented goals provides performance markers for managers and employees to discuss, as well as criteria to be met for any bonuses or pay tied to performance.

It’s no secret that benefits are important to employees. An Aflac employee overview survey showed that 60% of workers would accept a job with better benefits, even if the pay was lower. Another study by Fractl showed similar results, with 88% of workers saying that they would consider a lower-paying job over a higher-paying one if the health benefits were better.

In a 2018 Clutch survey, 14% of employees surveyed said that they would like their employer to offer different benefits altogether, and 52% said that they would like their employer to increase the level of a benefit they already had. A Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) job satisfaction and engagement survey reported that 92% of employees believed that employee benefits were important to overall job satisfaction.

Organizations that offer robust benefits programs are more likely to attract and retain top talent. And since benefits are also linked to job satisfaction, it implies that benefits are also linked to increased employee morale, well-being, and productivity.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) does not require small businesses to offer health insurance to employees. Even so, most businesses would like to provide health insurance to their employees. It is a good practice to follow, as group health benefits are a critical part of an employer’s employee value proposition.

Employees across all generations continue to report medical coverage as a top-tier benefit they consider when searching for jobs, researching companies, and determining whether to stay with their current employer. Employees don’t want to stress over medical expenses that could lead to financial hardships.