From a bird’s-eye view, Comcast is probably a lot like your company. Employees run the gamut from management to administrative staff to field technicians. But with more than 100,000 employees, Comcast does everything on a larger scale than most companies do.
However, size alone does not guarantee that employees understand and appreciate their benefits. Comcast, like many other companies, wanted to find a way to really reach employees. That, in turn, could increase participation in some programs and help employees make better choices for their individual situation in others.
Enter Jellyvision Labs, founded by Harry Gottlieb, to educate people about what Gottlieb describes as, well, boring topics. “Jellyvision is in the business of explaining complicated and oftentimes boring subjects to guide people in making wise decisions,” Gottlieb says. That eventually led to the world of corporate benefits.
Comcast learned about Jellyvision when working with one of its insurance carriers, which used the company’s services for communicating benefits. Preferring to keep the communications separate from the insurance products, Comcast approached Jellyvision about helping them explain their Flexible Spending Account (FSA) where participation was lackluster. Melissa Dulin, benefits project specialist for Comcast, says that situation has changed dramatically.
Using a lot of humor and interactivity, Jellyvision’s system can be used from home or at work. “It starts off with an interview about your health and your life,” says Gottlieb. “For example, [it asks about] what your expected medical needs might be next year, how many people in your family, how often you’re likely to go to your primary care physician. It uses a very conversational voice, a guy named David, who walks you through everything.
Then, based on what you’ve told David and considering the plans available at your company, it will tell give you a comparison of the plans. ‘Here is the deductible, coinsurance, etc. for each plan. Based on the comparison, it looks like this plan would be the least expensive.’ It also takes into account preferences like referrals for specialists, out-of-network coverage, things like that.”
Comcast employees loved the program, Dulin says. “Participation in the FSA stayed pretty stable for several years, based on our growth,” she says. “We started using Jellyvision this year. Our population finally evened out. We weren’t overturning as much, and we didn’t have a huge hiring surge—and from last year to this year, our FSA participation increased by 30%.”
You can view a demonstration of Jellyvision’s product at www.jellyvision.com. But even if you don’t become a customer of theirs, Gottlieb says you can apply many of the same strategies they use to improve your communications. “The bottom line,” he says, “is to be clear, to be accurate, and to be engaging. People know that, but they don’t always know how to do it.”
One: Do We Really Need All These Options?
Maybe you’ve never considered plan design as part of your communications program, but Gottlieb says that’s really the genesis of everything. “There is this grand tradition in the world of insurance and, by extension, the world of benefits, to have lots of details, and there is this perception that choice is good. It’s not always true. Some choice can be good, but companies sometimes take it too far.”
He cites a common situation as proof: “We will be working with an employer, and they enter the information for each plan into our system. Here are the deductibles; here is the coinsurance for various things; here is the premium.
“Then when you run the recommendation algorithm for their employees, a particular plan never gets recommended. The employer will say that something is wrong with the algorithm. But it is completely agnostic; it’s just doing math. The plan isn’t being recommended because the combination of the premium and the coinsurance and the deductible means that it is always worse than the other two plans. Why is it even there?
“Sometimes they’ll say that a lot of people are on the plan, and they’re comfortable with it. That seems like a good reason, because this stuff is confusing and employees don’t want to have to deal with it. It’s just easier to go along year after year. But if at some point the employee realizes that they’re on the wrong plan, that they could have saved a lot of money, the employer gets dinged for not being helpful. I think that if you make it easier and put the real numbers in front of people, showing them the actual costs, they will begin to move to different plans on their own.
“Employers need to evaluate their choices. Ask yourself if some of them can be eliminated. Is each one of them really meaningful? And it isn’t just the plans, it’s also the options within the plans if you’re self-insured. Do you really need a separate coinsurance rate of 90% for this, 95% for that, and 85% for the other thing? Do you really think you’re motivating behavior by using these different rates?
“Probably not, because people are too confused; they’re not tracking with you. Why not make them all 90%? Yes, in some cases, people will pay a little more, and in some cases, they’ll pay a little less. But consider the value of the clarity of saying, I know I’m paying 10%, and that’s it. That’s worth a lot.”
Two: Does This Apply to Me?
That’s the first question many employees have when you hand them their enrollment materials, Gottlieb says. “HR hands out brochures and enrollment documents, and employees are sent off to wade through all of these things—coinsurance charts and legalese. A lot of it is material that doesn’t even apply to them, and they have to weed their way through it.
“Even when it is online, it’s sometimes just an electronic version of what you would otherwise hold in your hand. So personalizing the communication, based upon people’s needs, is important.
“For example, take 22-year-old Joe. Generally, you’re going to make this single guy weed through documentation about maternity and well-child care in a group benefits presentation.
“While Joe is sitting there being bored, he’s thinking, ‘This is a waste of my time.’ What you want him thinking is, ‘My company is awesome for providing these benefits that matter to me.’”
Three: Let Me Ask You This …
“I’m a huge fan of Frequently Asked Questions on the Web,” 0Gottlieb says. “They’re already naturally in English.
“So, for example, a medical FAQ, even a rather extensive one, is a better way of getting at information than a lot of prose that’s probably going to end up sounding technical anyway.
“It’s easier to find what you want in an FAQ because all of the answers are in small bites. It you see the question that’s in your head, you know you’re in the right place.”
With research showing that fewer than 20% of employees actually understand their benefits, Gottlieb says many companies are missing out on a tremendous opportunity.
“Considering the tens of millions of dollars being spent on benefits communications in this country, it tells me that it’s not the amount of money being spent, it’s that the money is not being spent effectively.
“That’s a tragedy for thousands of families. The average engagement ring costs $3,500, and the average American family spends $3,500 on health insurance every year.
“If you’re spending $3,500 on an engagement ring, you’re really going to think about it, look into it, research it.
“That doesn’t happen in health insurance because it is just too confusing. It is a little more confusing than 2+2=4, but it can be understood.
“With the proper tools to support it and a little effort, you can teach it in a way that is really delightful and, most importantly from the HR perspective, has people appreciating the generosity of their company.”