A reminder: MedBen University will soon be in session!

Throughout March, MedBen University (MBU) will be conducting virtual employer roundtables. These free webinars will discuss current benefit management issues and proven solutions available your health plan, including:

• Implications of an important Supreme Court victory involving MedBen that was a victory for self-funded employers.
• Strategies to combat health care inflation.
• Specialty drug strategies that benefit your plan and your members, with case studies.
• Direct-to-employer contracting solutions that benefit your plan, your members, and the health system while lowering costs.
• Advances in member engagement.

We’ll also provide industry cost benchmarks and review benefit trends. 

MBU roundtable invites have been emailed to every client. If you haven't RSVP'd yet, please do so today! And if you haven't received an invite for some reason, contact Contact MedBen Manager of Marketing & Analytics Jess Schmidt.

We look forward to having you join us for the 2023 MBU season!

Employers pay up to 30 times as much for specialty drugs than Medicare does, new research finds. According to the JAMA Health Forum, for the 10 most commonly used specialty drugs, employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) plans paid prices up to 3,350% higher than Medicare. Even for the most expensive drugs, employer costs could be as much as 54% more than Medicare pricing.

“High ESI prices for physician-administered drugs raise overall spending and threaten access to innovative and lifesaving products for close to half of the U.S. population with health insurance through their employer,” the study concluded. “Policies to reduce ESI prices for physician-administered drugs will be important. These efforts are needed for both low-price, commonly used drugs and the most-expensive drugs.”

To give you a hedge against high specialty drug costs, MedBen Rx offers access solutions – new ways to provide member assistance through plan design, public aid, and other avenues. Our Specialty Drug Services use highly competitive solutions to deliver best-in-market pricing.

Take the first step to bring your specialty spend down by calling MedBen Rx at 888-627-8683.

MedBen has once again topped the list of Largest Central Ohio Employee Benefits Companies as ranked by Columbus Business First.

“We’re celebrating our 85th anniversary this year, and the main reason for this longevity is our people,” said MedBen President and CEO Kurt Harden. “There’s an enormous pool of talent in Central Ohio that we’ve been able to draw from, and many of our team members have been with us for two or even three decades.”

MedBen’s roots in Central Ohio go back to 1938 and its origins as a local hospital service association. In the intervening years we’ve expanded our benefits management services across the United States, but our home office remains in Newark, Ohio.

“We serve clients in 39 states, but at heart we’re a community-based company,” Harden noted. “One of our biggest areas of growth is direct-to-employer contracting, which works because it’s focused on giving employees access to low-cost care from local providers. So it’s a natural extension of the business philosophy we established many years ago.”

Learn about direct-to-employer contracting, as well as all the other ways MedBen can deliver savings for your business, by calling 888-627-8683.

A new report finds that the primary care workforce has decreased in recent years, and advises that the U.S. should invest more in adding new physicians. It's a sensible suggestion, considering that primary care has demonstrably contributed to making Americans healthier.

As Forbes notes, "Greater use of primary care services has long been associated with better health, better care, and lower costs." And indeed, recent studies have borne that out:

• Heart attack-related deaths fell an average of 4% per year from 1999 to 2020.
• The US cancer mortality rate has fallen 33% since 1991.
• Asthma deaths decreased 41% between 1999 and 2016.
• New diabetes cases declined 35% from 2009 to 2017.
• The average American's cholesterol levels dropped 20% over a decade.

Numbers like these attest to the usefulness of primary care and the importance of encouraging more student physicians to consider a career in family medicine. A short-term investment could result in substantial savings by reducing the need for higher-cost treatment.

MedBen WellLiving is built on establishing and maintaining a primary care physician/patient relationship. This enables the doctor to perform wellness tests and monitor potential symptoms over an extended period, which helps to prevent complications for unmanaged health conditions.

You can see for yourself the ways that a primary care focus promotes a healthier workplace while lowering your health care spend by contacting MedBen at 888-627-8683.

HealthJoy Enhanced Navigation has augmented its technology experience with performance reporting updates and other enhancements now available in the Employer Dashboard.

These improvements will provide you with greater visibility into member behavior and a more direct reflection of the health spend savings you gained by adding HealthJoy. You will be able to access via the Dashboard:

• Updated program savings that align with the new "Health Spend Savings" calculation that quantifies the value of provider/facility recommendations.
• Consolidated reporting that incorporates HealthJoy's musculoskeletal (MSK) program savings and enrollment data into its calculations.
• Additional pre-certification utilization, recommendations, and redirection savings data.

The shareable PDF performance report will be updated to reflect the most recent “Health Spend Savings” calculation and includes insights into MSK and precertification steerage data. Performance reports reflecting the new updates will be available beginning April 1st and will appear on the first day of each month.

To download a performance report:

1. Visit the HealthJoy Employer Dashboard and select the “Reporting” tab in the navigation menu on the left.
2. Select “Download Reports” in the top navigation menu.
3. Select “Download” under the “Action” column to download the performance report. 

To learn more about the benefits of HealthJoy for you and your members, call MedBen at 888-627-8683.

Employer health plans are required to attest that they are in compliance with the Consolidated Appropriations Act’s gag clause prohibition no later than December 31, 2023 (and by December 31st of every year thereafter). We will provide more detailed information about the Gag Clause Prohibition Compliance Attestation and employer responsibilities in upcoming e-briefs and MedBen Monitor newsletters.

Drugmaker Eli Lilly is cutting insulin prices by up to 70%. and will cap costs at $35 per month for people with private insurance.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has requested documents from major PBMs about their fees and negotiated rebates.

CMS says surprise billing arbitration can resume for some disputes.

Flu shots have substantially reduced the risk of flu-related hospitalizations this season, the CDC reports.

Want better health and improve your odds of longer life? Walk 11 minutes a day... and get some sleep!