Apta Healthcare Blog

Smiles per hour. That’s the cost of riding bikes. If you’ve ridden a bike, you’ve probably had the experience of traveling farther on two wheels compared to how far you would go on two feet. When you pedal forward you are multiplying the distance your feet can travel. For example, taking a step only gets you as far as your foot can reach, but a bicycle can coast along a flat surface with relatively little resistance to motion. Pretty cool and highly efficient. 

Chocolate soufflé. Even the most experienced chefs have a hard time making the perfect soufflé. It’s a dish famously known for its level of technicality as well as food expertise, so jumping in the kitchen to whip this up is no cakewalk. If you thought you were reading an insurance blog but turned into a foodie’s daydream of dark chocolate, bear with me, I promise there’s a point. Health insurance is a lot like baking a cake. The right recipe and ingredients make all the difference. So, if traditional insurance was a plain chocolate cake, self-funded plans are a chocolate soufflé. A little more technical but a lot more rewarding.

It's common for a client to ask their health insurance broker, “How can we get our employees more engaged?”. Savvy employers intrinsically know that engagement is a key component to how their employees utilize their benefits. They add incredible health program enhancements (point solutions) to their plan, get excited about the offering, talk about it during Open Enrollment meetings, and even send out marketing materials to remind their employees to utilize the available solutions. Then they wonder, “Why is nobody engaging?!”

Englewood, Colo., April 21, 2020

Have you ever given much thought to how loud the sun might be? Or, how loud it actually is? I love reading about our cosmos. Black holes, exoplanets, gravitational waves, particle colliders… it all makes my mind race and expand (kind of like the universe [even if we can’t agree on how fast it’s happening!]). But most of all, I like to think about our small place in it all, tucked away on this blue marble in the midst of nothing and everything, all at once.

Platinum Patients are outliers that make up a mere 5 percent of the population, but spend the same amount on healthcare as the remaining 95 percent combined. This means, if there was a cake offered to 100 people, 5 people would eat as much cake as 95 people.

Okay, so Platinum Patients must be the sickest 5 percent of the population and require a significant amount of care, right? Well, not necessarily.

Any number of unforeseeable employee health crises can have a major effect on company healthcare costs: an office-wide flu outbreak, seasonal illnesses, even bad guacamole in the break room can all lead to high healthcare claims costs.

Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage rose to $18,764 in 2017 — employees paid an average $5,714 out of pocket in premiums alone. Seems like a pretty outrageous cost for the mere security of everyday livelihood, doesn’t it? Well, guess what? The cost for employers and employees alike is projected to keep growing, with no end in sight.

Health insurance has lost its way. As a result of bureaucracy and corporate greed, the healthcare system is broken, and is costing employers and employees alike.

Company health insurance should give employees peace of mind — assurance that care is available whenever needed. It should provide companies a way to keep employees healthy and show that every individual’s best interest is a priority. In these areas and more, full-coverage health insurance falls short.

When you sign up for health insurance what value does it add to your life? Sure, it’s something we are required to have, but what do we really mean when we say the phrase “health insurance?”

Did you know the word “insurance” comes from the 16th century Old French word “ensurance?” This roughly translates to “assurance; safe and secure.” Now, do any of these words actually come to mind when you call your insurance company or face the bill after a procedure?

Didn’t think so.

Instead, common associations are probably more in line with “dread,” “terror,” or “not again.” How did we stray so far from the original intent of this word? Excuse my French, but what the health happened?