Planning for health

Any company funded health plan needs to cover various groups of employees while being cost-effective in the long run. For this, insurance organisations offer a variety of group health plans ranging from dental to hospitalisation coverage for companies to choose from.

Besides the general policies, companies are increasingly looking into flexible health plans. These offer core benefits like hospital and illness insurance coverage as well as optional benefits such as supplementary medical support and even gym memberships.

General policies for companies

Health insurers advise companies to make sure that their health plans are not only cost-effective but are also sustainable in the long-run so that employees get the same benefits even during economic upheavals.

“Corporate health plans must be sustainable in the long-term as a part of employee-benefits package. It is unwise to offer very rich corporate health plans in good times and subsequently withdraw or reduce the benefits during bad times as this will affect staff morale,” explains Raymond Wong, Vice President and Head of Department, Corporate Solutions of the American International Assurance Company (AIA).

With various health care policies to choose from, insurers note that some of the basic programmes that companies are interested in are medical reimbursements of inpatient care – hospitalisation, or outpatient care such as clinic visits for employees.

Kelly Leong, Senior Manager, Great Eastern Benefit @ Worksite Team states Great Eastern offers a wide range of health plans to fit the needs of its over 3,000 corporate clients. At the basic level, the insurer offers the “Group Hospital and Surgical Plan”. “This is a medical reimbursement plan which covers expenses incurred as a result of hospitalisation and surgery due to illness or injury,” she says.

AIA also “has a comprehensive range of health plans for corporate clients with benefits such as out-patient, in-patient and dental coverage,” says Wong. Plans such as “Group Hospital & Surgical Benefit” cover expenses for hospitalisation and surgery fees while the “Group Maternity Benefit” helps employees cover pre-and post-natal consultation fees.

Managed-care programmes are also utilised by many employers. It provides them with access to a network of clinics and specialists for outpatient care. MHC Asia Group provides a network of more than 870 of General Practitioners, specialists and dental clinics for corporate clients to visit for medical care. Great Eastern too has “SupremeCare” that allows members to visit more than 250 clinics island wide to receive outpatient treatment on a cashless basis by simply producing a member card.

Plans go flexible

Although most companies buy group health plans that fit the general needs of employees, the ‘one size fits all’ mentality is gradually changing. As more workplaces are boasting a diverse workforce, organisations note that different groups of employees have different medical needs.

Patrick Kerrigan, Head of HR for Credit Suisse, Asia Pacific says that the company has a general group health plan for all employees, which encompasses a variety of medical benefits from flu vaccinations to maternity allowance and outpatient care. “Employees at Credit Suisse are provided with suitable medical plans designed to meet the needs of our employees. Dependents of employees are also covered under the plans.”

However, he notes that in the past three to five years there has been a change with what employees want. The bank has received feedback from employees via various employee networks as well as through a study, “Total Reward Optimisation”, which was commissioned last year in its Singapore and Hong Kong offices.

“In the market generally, the biggest change has been the introduction of flexibility into medical plans where employees have the ability to tailor their benefits according to their needs. This is something that Credit Suisse is working towards for all its employees in Asia Pacific based on positive feedback from a recent internal survey,” explains Kerrigan.

Extended coverage

Health insurers also state that companies are requesting portable medical benefits for their employees. Portable medical benefits provide continued medical coverage for employees who are in-between jobs and even for individuals who have retired.

“The most common request companies have is extending the coverage for staff when they leave the organisation as they understand that employees are concerned on coverage lapse once they resign and may not be able to buy a health plan on their own,” says Wong.

But why should companies continue to extend health plans for employees who are no longer tenured with them? Employers who utilise such plans can enjoy higher tax reduction for medical expenses of up to two per cent of total employee’s remuneration. (See side box).

Simplifying the process

An organisation would have to deal with a substantial amount of paperwork when it comes to processing medical claims or writing reports and this could be a tedious process, especially if it has a large workforce. Companies, however, could enlist the help of third-party administrators to help them with paperwork.

“A typical employee makes an average of five visits to see the primary care doctor per year. Companies with large headcounts often end up having to process large volume of outpatient receipts and reimbursement manually,” says Dr Low Lee Yong, CEO and Founder of MHC Asia Group.

He explains that companies have various needs when looking for a third-party administrator that include a “comprehensive web-based system to manage their medical benefit programmes”. In addition, employers want online access to “view the utilisation made by employees” and a system to audit and review claims submitted by clinics.

So far, MHC has processed over 1 million outpatient claims in Singapore from numerous corporate clients, including StarHub and NTUC Fairprice. Besides automating the medical claim processing, Dr Low says: “HR is empowered with online information and corporate profile of disease patterns, expenditures and sick leave patterns which allow them to do budgeting and planning.”

Great Eastern, which also offers similar services through its ‘Managed Care Programme’, is popular among companies, especially those with “bigger staff strength as they could outsource the administration of expense reimbursement as well as enjoy the risk management under an insured medical programme,” explains Leong.

Dr Low suggests HR managers to do a reference check on the administrator with existing clients. He adds that companies should visit the office of the third-party administrator to find out their practices in order to ensure that staff data is secure and confidential.