Gilsbar Contributes Case Study on Healthcare Cost Control Published in CDHC Solutions Magazine

Covington, LA (PRWEB) June 1, 2010 -- Americans have been reading a great deal about the impending healthcare reform package and may have many questions about how it will affect their businesses, and specifically, their self-funded health plans. Gilsbar is considered a preeminent authority in the field of self-funded health plan management and consumer driven healthcare strategy. Because of this, CDHC Solutions requested Gilsbar provide them with an article and case study to be published in the April/May 2010 issue of the magazine.

In the article, Gilsbar points out that self-funding health plans have endured fairly well, considering the breadth of recent legislation. Even so, Gilsbar notes that American employers should prepare for change over the course of the next eight years, and the laws’ often-conflicting provisions go into effect and regulators try to decipher the details necessary to produce “clearer” regulations.

Over the past decade, the organization has learned that self-funding and consumer driven healthcare (CDHC) have to start with employees, not with the health plan or benefit design alone. Costs can no longer be controlled by simply controlling costs; rather, employers will control costs by engaging employees in a way that enables them to decrease their long-term risk factors. Employers should engage employees where they are and communicate genuine concern through investment in tools, education and resources.

Gilsbar also points out that an effective CDHC strategy must include the incentives to help sick members effectively manage their conditions and motivate healthy employees to stay healthy. A consumer-directed strategy will not work (“work” meaning mitigate healthcare costs) unless employers are highly dedicated to employee engagement and health and lifestyle management.

According to Gilsbar, the most important issue in containing employer healthcare costs will be developing and implementing a corporate health strategy that becomes the backbone for creating a culture of health within organizations. Gilsbar has proof that employees will be more engaged, healthier, more productive and overall healthcare costs will start to come under control when such programs are put in place. Doug Layman, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at Gilsbar Inc. says, “Across Gilsbar’s client base, those employers who have implemented CDHC strategies for their benefits plans, corporate health strategies, and have implemented health improvement programs have seen a year-over-year trend of only about 3.2%, when the national average is closer to 7.7%.”

To read the entire article, please visit http://www.cdhcsolutionsmag.com/SITEFORUM?t=/contentManager/onStory&e=UTF-8&i=1188405849871&l=0&ParentID=1188438496168&StoryID=1273631950793&active=no2.

About Gilsbar