CEOs and Health Insurance cost management

When I decided to schedule David Hansen, CEO of United Healthcare, to be a speaker at the CEOtoCEO breakfast in November I knew we would get a lot of questions from CEOs about better ways to manage health insurance costs. We weren’t disappointed.

This has been a topic I hear about all the time when meeting with CEOs and so we decided to hit it head on in our breakfast series. In the beginning, I was concerned that David might get barraged by all kinds of politically charged questions – especially with all the talk about Obama’s Health Care Reform campaign. To my surprise, this wasn’t the hot topic.

The hot topic was about what a CEO can do to better manage health care costs. Having the right questions is essential to determining the right answers. David posed five questions that leaders should answer which will lead to better-cost management strategies.

1. Who makes decisions in choosing your benefits and communication strategy and are they asking the right questions?
2. Do I have the best broker and are they asking how we can actively manage healthcare costs?
3. Do I have a 3 – 5 year written strategic plan to manage my healthcare costs?
4. Your company’s historical claims experience is considered in future premium increases in Washington – both self funded and fully insured premiums are impacted!
5. Do I have an incentive based system that rewards employees and dependent families for choosing the best physicians, leading healthy lifestyles, and managing their/our healthcare costs?