2011 FORUM West Workshops

What is the key to a successful high-deductible health plan/health savings account (HDHP/HSA) plan? Getting employees to understand the real advantages of the heath saving account. HDHP and HSA plan designs are exciting options to help employers and employees get more engaged in the health care purchasing decisions, but few really understand the financial benefits of using an HSA to deposit pre-tax dollars, grow their savings, and pay for health care – this year, next year and into their retirement. Wellness and incentive programs are important too, but the tax advantaged, HSA saving vehicle brings about long term advantages that can benefit everyone, regardless of their current health status. HSAs help those currently in good health save for the future when medical expenses surface even for the fittest. And HSAs help those currently facing health challenges pay for the visits and medications they need now, on a pre-tax basis.

This session will show you:

• Best practices to help you design a successful HDHP and HSA combination.
• How to increase the success of your HDHP/HSA – including setting goals and establishing timelines.
• How to use stories to explain the benefits, and how to benefit from the HSA now and in the future.
• How HSAs can be a long-term tax-advantaged savings vehicle.

Expand your knowledge of common topics employers and people want to better understand in our interesting quiz show format.

Speakers: Karli Dunkelberger, Vice President, National Practice Leader, OptumHealth Financial Services.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Consumer-centric employee benefits represents a fundamental shift in the focus away from passive benefits participation and toward a model in which benefits consumers, that is employees and their families, take a more active role in choosing and using their benefits. This consumer-centric approach to benefits is well founded in economic theory and is supported by marketplace dynamics.

The purpose of this workshop is three-fold: 1) to lay out the economic underpinnings for consumer‐centric benefits; 2) to define consumerism in practical marketplace terms; and 3) to dispel the myths and misconceptions currently circulating about this topic. In stark contrast to the “planned economy” of employee benefits of the last century which created inefficiencies and higher costs at reduced quality, consumer‐centric benefits is based on a market economy where businesses and consumers decide of their own volition whether and what they will purchase.

Employers invest in the underlying benefits “infrastructure” and the economy operates based on employee demand. That demand, in turn, is driven by utility – a model in which preferences of economic entities (in our case benefits) are expressed with regard to risk and return. The consumer-centric benefits model recognizes that each employee must maximize utility by expressing his or her appetite for risk balanced against the economic return. The theory is borne out by examining the ways in which individuals actually spend their own money in the insurance marketplace.

It is important to note that while Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC) is a center-piece of this new model, consumer-centric benefits encompasses a wide range of benefits plans. And in a larger sense, it is less about the plans and much more about the marketplace where consumers exercise more choice and more control over their benefits purchases.

Speakers: Timothy Godzich, Liazon Co-founder and Executive Vice President, Corporate Development.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

This discussion will focus on taking a new approach to driving employee engagement in health care with an emphasis on individual accountability in achieving mental, physical and financial well being. This holistic approach is based on combining dynamic, targeted behavioral change programs with financial decision support leaving employers with a more productive workforce and lower health care costs.

From this session, you will walk away with:

• An understanding of the interrelationship of consumer-directed health plans, wellness, and account-based health plans
• Why an integrated model of decision support, engagement and financial empowerment is critical
• What are the critical success factors in the design of an integrated model

Speakers: Darren McCue, Executive Vice President of Strategy & Product Development, PayFlex and Mary Moslander, President and CEO, LiveHealthier.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Find out how you can introduce online social games into your health and wellness programming and specifically what to look for in the new games. You’ll learn which elements are most effective at engaging employees and what’s involved in rolling out the games in your organization. If you make getting healthy fun to do by making it a game, your employees will be clamoring to exercise more and eat better.

Speakers: Keith Messick, Chief Marketing Officer, Keas.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

An estimated 87.5% of health care claims costs are due to an individual’s lifestyle. What is driving this unhealthy lifestyle? According to a recent survey conducted by the American Institute of Preventive Medicine, 50% is attributed to behavior. Employers have an unprecedented opportunity to transform their corporate culture with a wellness incentive program. Focused on behavioral change, these programs achieve a high percentage of employee compliance to goals and objectives.

Speakers: Don Doster, President & CEO, gBehavior.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Too many brokers, employers, and employees view CDHP’s as simply low premium high out of pocket cost alternatives to traditional comprehensive health plans, that only benefit young healthy participants. Review actual case studies of employer implementation of CDHC and look behind the scenes of how employers across the country are creating CDHP’s that meet budget requirements but still provide attractive plan options to employees.

Speakers: Dan Morrill, CDHC Specialist, Co-Founder, President, Dynamic Benefit

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Employers are looking to offer benefits that simplify the consumer healthcare experience, by offering a solution that is secure, scalable, easy to use, lowers costs, and offers account balances and information available anytime, anyplace. Attend this session to hear how the nation’s largest electronic payment, on-premise and cloud computing health care solution and its Partners are administering HSAs, HRAs, FSAs, VEBAs, Wellness and Transit Plans while dedicated to delivering value, reducing costs, eliminating paper and simplifying the business of health care.

Speaker: Chris Byrd, President and COO, Evolution1

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

An HR executive offers insight into her organization’s positive experience in switching its health and welfare plans entirely to the consumer driven model. Learn about successes in communication with employees, implementation strategies and how to avoid potential pitfalls. Hear how consumer-driven plans have set the company up to meet health care reform head on.

Workshop Learning Objectives:

1. Explore communication strategies around consumer driven plans
2. Implementation strategy & tools to engage employees in consumer driven plans
3. Use of executive sponsors in the design of health care plans

Speaker: Diana M. Andersen, SVP & Director of Corporate Benefits, Zions Bancorporation

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

While employers are turning to wellness programs to help manage the ever-growing costs of health care, they’re realizing that the promise of better health alone isn’t necessarily enough to drive employee participation: They need help in creating sustainable, effective programs that provide a compelling incentive to join. The stronger the incentive, the greater the participation, and equally importantly, the more likely participants remained engaged and stick with it.

In this session, you will gain insight into:

• Best practices in motivation/engagement from an industry leader
• Custom, primary research that identifies the most compelling and effective wellness incentives
• How to get the most ROI from your wellness incentives

Speaker: Matt Harris, Vice President, Marketing, InteliSpend.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Retirement benefits were changed dramatically during the transition from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution based programs. These changes resulted in increased accountability for individuals and more stable, predictable costs for employers. That same shift is continuing in healthcare. Account based plans are increasingly common and have raised awareness about disparities in cost and quality. Now employers are looking for ways to align an employee’s engagement in their health to the actual cost of their healthcare by providing personal and social tools and guidance.

Speaker: Kyle Rolfing, CEO, RedBrick Health and Brad Kimler, EVP, Benefits Consulting for Fidelity Personal and Workplace Investing (PWI).

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Applying the principles of value based benefit design to the management of low back pain leads employers and health plans to utilize chiropractic care. Recent studies document the quality and cost-efficiencies of chiropractic services and encourage employers to begin piloting and pursuing this strategy. The goal is to avoid costly back surgery whenever possible, saving precious resources and promoting better quality of life for individuals. This session will provide the evidence to support this decision-making at the employer, health plan and individual levels.

Speakers: Niteesh Choudhry MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School. Moderated by Laura Carabello.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Start with CDHP, then expand to a fully-aligned approach to health, cost and performance management. Wendy Lynch, author of "Who Survives: How Benefit Costs are Killing Your Company," will present evidence showing how all human capital policies connect and how optimal policy design can empower employees and drastically reduce cost. See examples where compensation and time-off policies lead to better health and lower cost.

Speakers: Dr. Wendy Lynch, Founder, Lynch Consulting Senior Scientist, Health and Human Capital Foundation.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Bottom line, the key to solving our nation’s health care woes is not Affordable Care, but improving the health status of individuals. True health reform starts with the individual. Getting each one to be engaged in a life committed to healthy behaviors is critical to an employer’s financial success. This session will focus on wellness and health engagement tools using account-based plans that TRULY move the needle to improve health status.

Speakers: Jody L. Dietel, CFCI Chief Compliance Officer, WageWorks, Inc.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

While social media continues to grow, the law creates complications at the point where work and consumerism come together. Employers should support employee use of social media as a means of developing the consumer market, but they also need to keep their employees from disparaging the employer and its products, inadvertent advertising under FTC guidelines, using misleading and inappropriate statements and a variety of other concerns. This program will balance the good with the risk in a practical and helpful manner.

Speakers: Gavin Appleby, Attorney at Law, Littler Employment & Labor Law Solutions Worldwide. Moderated by Kim Adler, VP National Accounts, Allstate Benefits.

Questions? Submit your questions to the speakers of this Workshop.

Tabletop discussion, with specified topics at each table, creating lively debate. Not only will attendees get a quality lunch, they have the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the top industry experts in one of eight different specialized areas. Join fellow attendees and engage in conversations and deep insights and learn solutions to problems facing your company’s health care benefits in an intimate setting. Seating is limited to nine per table. Sign up at the registration desk. First come, first served.