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Teladoc tackles spiralling healthcare costs to give staff superior cover

Teladoc tackles spiralling healthcare costs

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“I’m not even paying you and you’re literally making this so easy for me. It’s kind of weird!”

Hooray has been working with virtual healthcare provider Teladoc since 2021. Their health insurance premiums were pretty steady until 2023 when they suddenly faced a 47% hike on their Group Health Insurance premium at their annual renewal.

But with a few tweaks and a whole lot of negotiation we helped lower that increase to 19%.

And that was just the start of the story!

Do you need help tackling rising health insurance premiums? Arrange a no-obligation consultation with our award-winning team via hello@hoorayinsurance.co.uk or 01273 222805 to find out if you could be saving money.

Rising costs and too little time to tackle them

Like many HR professionals, Heather Pearcey, Head of HR at Teladoc, has a lot on her plate. And so trying to fix the issue of rising health insurance renewals, was not only outside her area of expertise, but also beyond her capacity.

We would just renew our policy again and again, and that was coming at a significant cost to the organisation,” she said.

Heather was worried about the escalating cost of Teladoc’s health insurance scheme and needed professional support to help manage the increases, ensure future affordability whilst safeguarding access to high quality healthcare for the employees.

After we helped them successfully shrink the renewal increase in 2023, Teladoc were faced with a further 24% rise in 2024.

Increases were particularly severe as medical inflation had doubled and their policy included full cover for all the key benefits, with no limitations on the cover.

Heather was paired with one of our expert advisors, Jess Wright, to help Teladoc wrestle the price hike.

“She came up with loads of amazing suggestions!” said Heather.

Switch to guided care model saves 30% on renewal

During Teladoc’s first renewal with Hooray, Jess discussed with them how they could save money by switching to a “guided care” model with one of the big insurance providers.

Adding a Guided Option to a health insurance policy, means that once a policy holder has an open referral for treatment, they have a contact at the insurer who will essentially guide them to a shortlist of appropriate doctors or consultants.

The model usually means a narrower selection of consultants and hospitals to choose from, but the services essentially remain the same.

“We were getting exactly the same service as the previous year but it was costing us thirty per cent less,” said Heather.

Healthcare Trust provides more wellbeing insight

At the next renewal, Heather encountered another major premium hike. This was due to a combination of medical inflation (rising medical costs) and the high number of claims being made on the policy.

There’s not a huge amount you can do about rising medical costs, but there are often ways of tackling large numbers of claims – if you know what they are for. However, this information was not forthcoming from their insurer and so Teladoc decided to move to a Healthcare Trust instead of staying on a fully insured Group Private Medical Insurance scheme.

In layman’s terms, a Healthcare Trust works like this: Teladoc puts money into a pot which is used to finance eligible treatments. Any money left over at the end of the year can then be rolled over into next year’s pot. Teladoc’s choice of Healthcare Trust also gave them more insight into claims data.

With the master trust, you can see a breakdown of all the claims, but it’s totally confidential and no names are attached,” said Heather. “But we can find out what treatments are being accessed.

The advantage is that we can then tailor our benefits and our support at work to address those issues people are claiming for. For example, if we were to see a higher number of musculoskeletal-related claims, it could highlight a need to review our desk setup guidance or review our approach to workstation assessments.”

Smarter spend on mental health support

In reviewing their claims data, Jess saw that there were claims for counselling services that could have been addressed by Teladoc’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) – a separate wellbeing product that gives employees up to 10 counselling sessions as part of a pre-paid package.

Essentially, by claiming via the trust, they were paying extra for a service they already had!

“That’s the kind of difference that Jess is making. She’s able to join up the two things and help support us,” said Heather.

Jess worked with the EAP provider to make staff more aware of the mental health services they could access without having to claim from the trust.

A year-round free extension to Teladoc’s HR team

Hooray gives Teladoc advice and administrative support throughout the life of their policy, not just at renewal.

“Jess has the ability to translate something that is very complicated and very hard to digest into something that’s easy to understand and keeps me, my HR team, and our finance team happy.

“We’re able to make really good decisions based on the advice that she gives us. So we can’t do without her. She makes it so much easier. We’re very lucky to have that connection and we’re saving money as well.”

Heather says that without Hooray’s help, Teladoc would probably still be with the same insurer paying higher costs for an inferior service.

“It’s given us the opportunity to review what options we have available and then make those informed decisions, which I don’t have the expertise or capacity in my HR team to do.”

“We’re not a massive organisation, so having an expert that you can have as an extension of the team who can provide that level of support is invaluable – and we don’t even pay a fee for that extra support.”

 

If you’re struggling to manage company medical insurance or other employee benefits, then call our friendly team to see if we can make it easier – and less costly. Contact hello@hoorayinsurance.co.uk or 01273 222805 to arrange a no-obligation chat.

Author

  • Author:

    Mel is a journalist, editor and digital content writer who has written extensively on issues affecting the small business community.

    He trained as a journalist at Southampton Solent University which propelled him into a 12 year career as a freelance writer and communications professional.At the start of his freelance career, Mel launched the blog for accountancy firm Crunch and wrote a regular tax advice column for Photo Professional Magazine. He was a finalist in the Freelancer of the Year Awards 2010.Today, he writes about health insurance, employee benefits and employee wellbeing more generally.Mel keeps an eye on all the industry news and is a regular reader of Health & Protection, Cover Magazine, Employee Benefits and The Human Times, among other publications. 

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