With drug prices on the rise, you’d think employers would be making plenty of changes to save costs for their benefits plans. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. As Barbara Martinez, practice leader for drug benefits solutions at Great-West Life, told Benefits Canada’s Face-to-Face Drug Plan Management Forum last month, 90% of the insurer’s clients hadn’t […]
Indispensable and beneficial for some but unnecessary and expensive for others, paramedical services are an integral part of most group insurance plans in Canada. So should plan sponsors, always keen to optimize plan cost management, be concerned about the rise in the use of paramedicals in recent years? According to data from the latest Sanofi […]
Employers are divided when it comes to drugs. On the one hand, 90% of participants in Benefits Canada’s 2015 online survey strongly or somewhat agree that it would be worth it to pay for a high-cost drug if it meant their employee continued to be healthy and productive. On the other hand, they want financial […]
The number of high-cost prescription drug claims that Canada's private insurers covered for Canadians with fully-insured supplementary health insurance plans doubled in the Canadian Drug Insurance Pooling Corporation's first year of operation.
I have been in this business a long time—more than a few years. And since Day 1, benefits cost management has been the No. 1 issue facing benefits plan sponsors. I am tired of the conversation in large part because benefits plan sponsors have done relatively little to manage their benefits plan costs over the years. In absolute terms, benefits plan costs represent a relatively small percentage of an organization’s total compensation spend. And, bottom line, I don’t think benefits cost management is the right conversation.
The Co-operators Life Insurance Company has signed a strategic alliance agreement with the Reformulary Group.
The money spent on pharmaceutical treatment in Ontario more than pays off in savings for the health system and improved productivity for the economy, according to a report.
A study finds that employee health, drug and disability costs have risen significantly or are expected to increase, but only 15% of companies have considered a funding strategy to address the impact of future cost drivers such as an aging workforce, the expenses related to drug and disability plans, and legislative changes.
The cost of health and dental services don’t need to be shrouded in mystery. A little education can go a long way to help employees better understand the costs of these services and what they can do to save money for themselves and the company.
The actions U.S. employers have taken to better manage the costs of their benefits plans is showing real results, according to the National Survey of Employer-sponsored Health Plans, conducted annually by Mercer and released today.