New Alegeus Technologies Research Finds that Consumers Require Better Communication from their Employers Regarding Healthcare Benefits
Published on October 1st, 2014
Alegeus Technologies, the market leader in healthcare and benefit payments, recently released new research that explores the effectiveness of employer-to-employee benefit communication – during open enrollment and beyond. Findings revealed a clear gap, with nearly 40 to 50 percent of consumers expressing dissatisfaction with content clarity, depth, variety, frequency and degree of personalization of employer healthcare benefit communications. Meanwhile, employers were found to be overconfident – rating their communications to be nearly 20 percentage points more effective than consumers perceive them to be.
Survey findings revealed that most employers today offer limited benefit support. Sixty-five percent of employers communicate with employees about healthcare benefits only during the open enrollment period, and nearly 60 percent rely exclusively on plan summary documents and enrollment forms to communicate benefit plan and account options. Only a third offer interactive tools such as plan comparison calculators, and just 17 percent offer interactive evaluation tools that consider personal data in their recommendations to consumers. With many consumers still not understanding basic benefit terminology – it’s clear that consumers need more support.
Consumers continue to assume greater responsibility for the selection and funding of their healthcare, and many are unprepared to make informed choices without significant education and support,” said Steve Auerbach, CEO, Alegeus. “Employers have a huge opportunity to enhance employee benefit satisfaction through more effective communication strategies and more robust decision-support resources.
Alegeus provides comprehensive support for its administrator clients and their employer customers to design and implement successful benefit communication strategies for open enrollment and beyond. As an extension of its industry-leading benefit account administration platform, Alegeus offers clients turnkey marketing plans and materials to support “administrator-to-employer” and “employer-to-employee” communications – for benefit education, benefit enrollment and ongoing usage support.
Interactive analytics allow clients to identify actionable marketing opportunities. Turnkey program plans leverage best practices that have been honed based on field results and client input from hundreds of successful program deployments. Marketing materials range from simple print and electronic communication templates to multimedia education content, interactive calculators and decision support tools. All materials are offered in a true white label fashion – giving clients complete flexibility to brand and tailor communications as needed. A robust marketing portal makes it easy for clients to fully customize, download and/or deploy materials without needing graphic applications or expertise. All of this is supported by strategic engagement from Alegeus client management teams to ensure a successful outcome.
Improving employee healthcare benefit fluency and enhancing employee benefit decision-making, particularly as it relates to account based plans (such as HSAs, FSAs, HRAs), is a shared objective for both Alegeus and our clients,” Auerbach said. “With open enrollment season upon us, our clients look to Alegeus as a trusted partner to help them effectively communicate their benefit offerings to employers and consumers – and we continue to lead the industry in providing comprehensive strategy, turnkey content and support for our clients.
About Alegeus
With more than 25 years of growth and innovation, Alegeus is the market leader in SaaS-based healthcare payment solutions. Our highly flexible, white-label platform powers account-based benefit programs such as HSAs, FSAs, HRAs, COBRA, wellness incentives, lifestyle benefits and beyond. We deliver exceptional user experiences and differentiated capabilities that help our partners strengthen their product offerings, operate more efficiently, and unlock their full growth potential. Our partnerships with the industry’s leading health plans, third-party administrators, financial services and benefit solution providers give Alegeus unparalleled reach in the market. And our unique partnership model empowers our clients to achieve outsized results – growing their programs at a rate that is 2-3X the market, and with the highest net promoter scores (NPS) in the industry. We never compete with our clients – we win when they win. Alegeus is headquartered in Waltham, Mass., with operations centers in Orlando and Bangalore, and a large remote workforce.
