The rising cost of healthcare is prompting employers to explore other areas where costs can be lowered according to the healthcare division of Mellon Financial Corporation’s Human Resources & Investor Solutions (HR&IS) group.
A recent online survey of over 300 respondents conducted by Mellon HR&IS, revealed that 74% of employers were concerned about increasing healthcare costs.
Adrian Norris Managing Director of the Healthcare division of HR&IS, said that this helped to explain why employers were increasingly looking to make savings in other related areas to help keep private healthcare costs at a manageable level.
Sickness and absence management have, in particular, been identified by employers as areas where costs can be managed to counteract the rise in healthcare expenses. Better management of these areas may not necessarily result in immediate cost recovery but careful planning will help to ensure a more cost-efficient business in the long run, Mr Norris said. Action in these areas certainly seems to be slowing the need to make radical cuts in private healthcare provision.
However, Mr Norris confirmed that the cost of healthcare still looked set to continue its upward spiral.
Improvements in availability and standards of service in the NHS on one hand and the lack of patients and demand for private hospitals on the other ought to be driving costs of healthcare packages down but we have yet to see any sign of this.
Last year Mellon predicted that there would be a 70% increase in the cost if healthcare in the next five years. A year on, medical insurers acknowledge this estimate to be realisable. Mr Norris said.
Mellon survey reveals continuing anxiety over rising healthcare cost
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