Mid-Market Benefits Benchmarking
When making decisions about your employer-sponsored healthcare benefits strategy, it is critical to compare your benefit plans to those offered by other employers of a similar size. Benefits benchmarking allows you to remain competitive from a talent acquisition perspective and can uncover opportunities for improvement in the midst of the chaotic healthcare landscape.
Each year, Scott Benefit Services, alongside a leading actuarial consulting firm, conducts a Mid-Market Benefits Benchmarking Survey to help guide employers as they make decisions about their employee benefit plans for the following year.
Results from the 2017 survey reveal several healthcare benefits trends including:
High Deductible Health Plans – The prevalence of High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) in the market continues to grow, with 48% of employers nationally offering a HDHP in 2017. This compares to 41% in 2016.
Healthcare Inflation – After plan design changes, 2017 shows healthcare inflation of 5%. Additionally, the majority of employers sponsored expect an increase of 6-10% for 2018.
Pharmacy Costs – Pharmacy is the fastest-growing component of healthcare spending. In 2017, pharmacy accounts for 17% of total costs.
Alternative Funding Strategies – Many fully-insured groups with 75-200 members are investigating or implementing alternative financing strategies for their employer-sponsored healthcare plans. These alternatives include self-funding and group health captives.
Narrower Networks – In an effort to reduce costs, several carriers are offering networks that are much smaller. These narrow networks give carriers negotiating power with medical providers.
The complete, non-biased data from this survey is compiled to provide actionable benchmarking for employers on local, national and industry-specific levels.
Contact a Scott Benefits Consultant to compare your benefit plans to those of more than 3,000 mid-market companies nationally or to learn more about our comprehensive, results-driven approach to healthcare.
About the Mid-Market Benefits Benchmarking Survey
This marks the thirteenth year Scott Benefit Services has offered its mid-market benefits survey alongside a highly-respected actuarial consulting firm. The survey provides customized benchmarking data for mid-market companies’ benefit plans (50 – 1,000 employees) on regional and national levels. It is the largest benefits survey of its kind in the U.S. with over 250 participating mid-market companies in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, and 3,000 companies nationally.