Employee Benefits and the New Health Care Landscape

Using new private benefit exchanges, employers can bring the attractions of consumer-centric online shopping to benefits, giving employees unprecedented flexibility in benefits choices -- while also controlling costs through a defined compensation approach, just as they've done with retirement funding.

In this book, private benefit exchange innovator Alan Cohen introduces the concept to consultants, HR professionals, business owners, and insurers, and presents complete best practices for successful implementation. Drawing on his experience pioneering private benefit exchanges with Liazon's Bright Choices, Cohen:

• Shows how online shopping has transformed consumer behavior, and how to apply these insights to the benefits industry
• Explores the important shift to a defined contribution approach for benefits: the next wave from fee-for-service to managed care, to consumer-driven high-deductible health plans with HSAs
• Shows how private exchanges can benefit both employers and employees
• Helps you transition away from inefficient employer-managed plans
• Explains the role and value of brokers in the marketplace
• Reveals how exchanges affect HR
• Projects the impact of trends such as industry consolidation, the Affordable Care Act, and its public exchanges
• Examines the expansion and progress of the exchange system via real-world experiences
• Shows how to achieve the full potential of choice marketplaces
• Looks toward the future of the benefits industry, including notable innovations to date