The number 1 thing you should do if you are a self-funded employer

The other big pro of self-funding your health plan is you now have the ability to build a long-term strategy. No more thinking in one year decisions. Am I gonna shop carriers? Am I gonna have to increase deductibles and out-of-pocket maxes just to be able to absorb the increase that the insurance carrier passed on? Now you can think in multiple years, and one of the biggest things employers can take advantage of in this case is implementing different types of cost containment strategies year over year over year. A couple of examples of claims mitigation strategies might be around high cost prescription drugs, maybe sourcing those drugs from other countries for 40 to 50% of the cost of what it would be here in the United States. Maybe you implement some sort of mandatory second opinion program for one of the most expensive items that can hit a health plan like transplants. These are things that you don't have to do all at once, but you can look at your data and you can implement these over a long period of time and build it into a multi-year strategy. Data also becomes key when you as an employer are building a long-term strategy for your health plan. You're now gonna have access to David that you never even knew existed, and you can use this data to track the monthly performance of your plan, maybe make slight plan design tweaks each year. Maybe it's increasing a deductible, maybe it's actually decreasing a mental health copay because you want to remove a barrier to care that you're seeing in the data. Data is now gonna tell you a story, and as an employer, you can use that data to build, maintain, and fine tune a long-term strategy.