Healthcare Advocacy Enhances Workforce Wellness and Operations

Quick look: Navigating healthcare benefits can be confusing for both employers and employees. This setback can lead to uninformed care decisions, as well as frustrating and costly consequences while pursuing health needs. In this blog, learn how offering healthcare advocacy solutions as part of an employee benefits package can help fix this issue and empower workforces to get the care they deserve.

Putting your health first is easier with the right healthcare provider. However, deciding which provider meets personal and family needs can be challenging. An employee benefit like healthcare advocacy simplifies the decision process by connecting patients to experts skilled at decoding and guiding patients through a care network’s available offerings. Read on to discover the advantages companies and their employees earn by utilizing a healthcare advocacy solution.

Employee well-being

Though employers do their part to foster a healthy and safe workplace, employees still face medical concerns outside their organization’s environment. Healthcare benefits vitally assist workers with addressing these concerns. Still, workers can only get the most of these benefits if they are familiar or certain of each package’s offerings.

Healthcare advocacy solutions enable employees to navigate complex healthcare systems with ease. By understanding their options, employees can make more informed decisions. The support from this solution improves their overall health and well-being, which boosts their on-the-job engagement.

Potential cost savings

Unsurprisingly, healthcare is an influential factor for employees. In today’s workforce, 87% of employees evaluate a company’s health and wellness offerings when choosing an employer. Despite its expectations, these benefits can be an expensive investment for companies. The expenses only grow when dissatisfaction arises. If unclear enrollment guidelines or unreliable package assets exist, companies may need to invest additional funds to correct coverage discrepancies or opt for better benefits.

Healthcare advocacy services can help avoid this misstep by working with employees to understand their health insurance coverage, including what is and isn’t covered, how to get the most out of their benefits, and any cost implications. This solution also amplifies a business’ corporate wellness program, an asset that has caused 72% of employers to see healthcare cost reductions upon implementation.

Increased productivity

Company success heavily relies on the performance of its workers. Health plays a significant role in workforce productivity, as an employee’s accessibility to proper medical assistance reduces their likelihood of having stress or illness affecting their work ethic. That’s why 79% of employees believe a comprehensive well-being program, which includes corporate-provided healthcare and wellness perks, helps them be as productive as possible. 

Healthcare advocacy also elevates productivity. Services under this solution like finding healthcare providers, scheduling appointments, assistance with billing and claims, and healthcare coordination, minimize the time workers spend on wellness concerns. Instead, employees gain more transparency sooner on the types of care they can access through their benefits plan and offload certain responsibilities to their advocate. This assurance lets them focus more on their work, lifting their productivity.

Employee satisfaction and retention

Retention rates yield outstanding rewards for employers. According to one study, a company can maximize its profits by four times when maintaining a higher retention rate. Since retention is affected by an employee’s overall job satisfaction, 92% of HR leaders consider catering a good employee experience as their top priority. 

Enlisting a healthcare advocacy solution improves the employee experience and demonstrates a business’s commitment to its employees’ well-being. Consequently, employers can enhance employee loyalty and satisfaction.

Reduced absenteeism

Corporate sick leave gives workers time to heal, but they may need additional support and resources such as finding specialized care, getting second opinions, and understanding treatment options. Failing to identify their sickness raises their probability of lengthening their sick time and, in turn, their absence from work. This scenario can also put other coworkers’ health at risk. Unfamiliarity with a sickness can lead to it being spread faster, which may lead to multiple employees being absent at the same time.

With healthcare advocacy solutions, employees can determine the best steps for addressing their health concerns. This often leads to sooner diagnoses and proper cure recommendations, which may shorten their healing process and reduce the absenteeism needed to recover. Health advocates can also educate employees on recognizing illness symptoms and minimizing their spread in the workplace, which may further prevent health-rated absences among the team.

Compliance and risk management

Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries in the nation, and laws are constantly upgraded to preserve the quality of patient care and the integrity of care professionals. That’s why businesses are held to strict standards to ensure compliance. Additionally, employers must protect their workers’ health and safety by maintaining a solid risk management strategy. Still, companies may need help exercising risk awareness and monitoring the compliance level of current healthcare plans. It can also take a lot of work to fully exercise risk awareness while simultaneously managing multiple other operations impacting business success.

Thanks to healthcare advocacy solutions, organizations don’t have to face compliance issues and risk mishaps alone. Professional healthcare advocates inform employers of relevant upgrades or details behind healthcare laws. Whether regulations are enforced nationally, statewide, or locally, companies working with these experts can make better decisions that keep the business compliant while matching their team’s benefits needs. 

How ExtensisHR delivers healthcare advocacy to partners

As a certified professional employer organization (CPEO), ExtensisHR understands the groundbreaking advantages that healthcare advocacy offers businesses. That’s why we’ve partnered with Alight Solutions, an organization whose specialty is bringing clarity to healthcare management and benefits usage.

Each service is complemented with a high-level of patient confidentiality, ensuring that all interactions and shared information remain private. Their experts also maintain patient integrity by handling health-related issues and inquiries with sensitivity and respect.

Through our unique partnership, customers can receive the following support:

• Expert clinical guidance from the start of a patient’s healthcare journey
• Full disclosure of a patient’s rights and options under their healthcare plan
• Key information on benefit resources
• Diagnosis, treatment, and coping resources that encourage informed medical decisions
• Care coordination by scheduling appointments and transferring records
• Provider search assistance for in-network care professionals
• Hospital search assistance to find the highest quality facilities
• Cost comparisons for procedures and care
• Claims and billing assistance

Indeed, an effective healthcare advocacy solution can amplify the possibilities for benefits and encourage wellness among team members. 

Schedule a meeting with the ExtensisHR team today to start revolutionizing your corporate healthcare offerings.