Total Rewards Roundtables

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the Total Reward Roundtables, hosted by Total Rewards KC.

While the food, drink and networking were all fantastic I wanted to share some of my thoughts and takeaways from the roundtable discussions. The format for the event was each attendee was able to participate in two 45–60-minute roundtable discussions with other plan sponsors, vendors and consultants, each bringing their own unique perspective on the subject.

We had been asked to pre-select which discussions for which we would participate, and I selected Weight Management and Managing High-Cost Claimants and Fiduciary Compliance in Light of Recent Lawsuits, but others discussion topics included:

• Developing your team in a Hybrid/Remote environment
• Pay Equity
• Designing Your Job Architecture for Now and into the Future
• Rounding out your Benefits Program using Non-Traditional Vendors
• Trends in HR Technology

Weight Management and Managing High-Cost Claimants

A couple of the topics that were discussed during this roundtable included:

• Weight management - As I listened to the plan sponsors discuss their challenges with weight management I heard over and over again that they are looking for a more wholistic approach than just covering GLP-1s. Plan sponsors are looking for point-solutions to help support their employees during this journey. How is your organization addressing weight management and are you currently working with any point-solutions? Update: As a reference, I wanted to add a paper that Milliman just released, it looks at GLP-1 usage in state Medicaid plans; utilization, growth and management.
• Baby boom - Yeah, for babies! I had read about the pandemic fueled baby boom but didn't realize it had continued in the years since. Other than the obvious cost of employees having babies, some of challenges raised included: infertility (looking for vendor partners, and benchmarking around coverage limits and lifetime caps) and how best to provide support (maternity/paternity leave policies, providing lactation support -- some vendors mentioned in this space include Milk Stork, Cleo and Maven, what others have you worked with)

Fiduciary Compliance in Light of Recent Lawsuits

Fiduciary responsibilities for plan sponsors are well defined for retirement plans but there is a lot less clarity regarding H&W plans. Due to recent legislation Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) and lawsuits (Johnson and Johnson among others) plan sponsors have greater access to their data and have a renewed focus on transparency and meeting fiduciary responsibilities.

If you are like me, my LinkedIn feed over the past few months has been full of articles and commentaries on many of these subjects. Here are links to a few:

• Navigating the Complex Landscape of Healthcare Compliance: A Closer Look at Lawsuits and the CAA? - Health Plan Fiduciary Guides (hpfid.com)
• Navigating Fiduciary Waters: Lessons from the Johnson & Johnson Litigation for Health Plan Sponsors (worldinsurance.com)
• Jonathan Levitt and Dae Lee, Pharm.D, Esq., CPBS from Frier Levitt have written multiple articles on the subject.
• My friend Christopher Brown (who is hilarious by the way) shared his thoughts The J&J Fiduciary Lawsuit | LinkedIn.

In our roundtable we discussed the following steps that plan sponsors if they are not already, should be doing:

• Having a benefits committee that meets at least quarterly. Its members need to be trained on their duties and there needs to be a designated note taker in each meeting. The committee should include the treasure/CFO and folks from across the various businesses within the company.
• Making sure there is greater transparency to ensure that you are only paying reasonable costs for service providers which includes insurance carriers, TPAs, COBRA administrator, broker/consultants, PBM's and all other 3rd party point solutions.
• Monitoring and having oversight of your vendors. Ensuring that the work they complete on behalf of the plan adheres to the contractual terms. If I can give myself a bit of a shoutout here, this is the space I work in on a day-to-day basis. My company, Milliman Skysail provides ongoing PBM monitoring services, helping plan sponsors move from passive to more active management of their prescription drug plans.

I also wanted to thank all that were involved in the planning and execution of the event. If I have missed anyone, I apologize, and can someone please give them a shoutout in the comments? Kelly Price, SHRM-SCP Jennifer Day, PHR David Bailey Ann (Blalock) DiPasquale Dan Pannullo, MBA, CCP Gretchen FitzGerald Anne Wright, CBP Sara Rush, SPHR, MBA Cori McClish, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

#weightmanagement #fiduciaryresponsibility #drugpricing #PBM #PharmacyBenefits #GLP1s #employeebenefits