Think of your favorite app. Odds are, it’s user-friendly, intuitive and brings joy to your life.
Now, consider health benefits. Whether you’re a benefits administrator or an individual who uses them, the benefits in question likely come from several companies and are presented — and accessed — in myriad ways. But imagine if you could compile all those benefits — like your HSA, FSA, health rewards and more — into a digital health wallet that’s as intuitive and delightful as your favorite app.
That, said Colin Anawaty, CPO and co-founder of First Dollar, a technology company that builds healthcare benefits infrastructure, is what the future holds for benefits. “By educating people about their benefits, giving them access to easy-to-use technology and integrating everything into one place, we can put benefits on par with other consumer-first industries,” Anawaty said. First Dollar works with third-party administrators, health plans, financial institutions and others to provide tools that do just that, while also making their jobs easier. “In the end,” Anawaty said, “everybody wins.”
After all, benefits can be excellent incentives and tools for acquisition and retention — when they’re understood. According to a recent Harris Poll commissioned by First Dollar, nearly 22% of respondents were unsure or unaware of their benefits; and 42% of them felt there were too many benefits to keep track of. And that lack of benefit understanding can be very costly. In 2019, 44% of workers forfeited their FSA funds, with an average loss of $339.
First Dollar is working to change that. To design modern health benefits that people will use, Anawaty said, the industry must evolve to provide the kinds of digital access and experiences that put people first. He shared the following advice on how to build better health benefits.
- Design benefits for humans so they will use them. People have come to expect usability and convenience from products and services, whether they’re hailing a ride, splitting a restaurant bill with friends or communicating with family. “People shouldn’t need a brochure to understand how to use their benefits,” Anawaty said. “If they’re designed with the consumer in mind, the consumer will know how to use them.” That’s why First Dollar built its health spending benefits infrastructure so clients can embed HSAs, FSAs, Directed Spend, Rewards and more – while giving account holders digital access to their benefits.
- Personalize your benefits. Personalization is expected in everything today and benefits are no different. By leveraging benefit account holders’ data, administrators can design benefits that reflect their needs and goals. “Benefits can be customized so that they truly do help users, whether that means they receive work-from-home benefits, gym and fitness benefits, healthy-eating benefits, or any other curated perk they’re likely to use — and to really appreciate,” Anawaty said.
- Educate users about their benefits in a way that’s helpful and not overwhelming. Historically, benefits have been presented in incredibly confusing and complex ways. “They’re riddled with tax code that gets referenced even in the acronyms of the benefits themselves,” Anawaty said. “Or in some cases, people don’t know if it’s a use-it-or-lose-it type program versus an HSA.” That’s where education comes in and Anawaty said that First Dollar prioritized educating plan administrators as well as consumers using short, easy-to-read, easy-to-understand content.
- Demand administrative tools that solve common challenges. Most plan administrators use tools that fail to perform the basics, like sending a new card to a member without contacting the bank, and claims administration can be major headache for administrators ands consumers. Anawaty said that administrators often had to play “pay and chase” to get transactions approved, while consumers were stuck paying for items out-of-pocket and had to wait for reimbursement. The right tools and technology, he said, can quell that headache. “It can be as simple as filing a claim and getting reimbursed that same day and having that money available,” Anawaty said. “It just takes time and attention to identify your pain points in order to solve them.”
- Leverage fintech advances for today’s consumer. Consumer expectations have changed and health spending benefits have not kept up. And that gap, Anawaty said, is an opportunity for innovators. “Progress could be as simple as offering a virtual benefits card to reduce fulfillment costs and provide same-day spending flexibility, or enabling real-time reimbursements for manual claims with artificial intelligence – there’s a lot of room to grow here.”
Health benefits are an important part of a compensation package. They can attract employees to a company or members to a health plan and keep them there, to the benefit of all involved. However, they must be delivered in understandable and easy-to-use ways, or they might go to waste.
“I think the consumerization of benefits is only going to help people lead happier, healthier lives,” Anawaty said. “And that’s going to pay dividends for everyone.”
Want to learn more about modernizing your benefits package? Visit First Dollar.