You know happy employees are essential for any profitable business and your customer's first impression and the lasting impression of your business is always going to be determined by their experience with your people. You just can't run a successful service business without dedicated, hardworking employees and nothing correlates to employee appreciation more than great health benefits that they can use and love and the part that most employers appreciate the most is when I show them how these great health benefits can actually cost 30 to 60 percent less than traditional insurance. Hi My name's Art Getz with the Health Benefits Network where we give you the scoop on the latest ideas and innovations about healthcare and health benefits that can make your life better. 

Now these days more and more people are looking for the independence of owning their own business and unless your Elon Musk running a successful service business might be as close to the American Dream as you can possibly get, and when it's good, it's great. But being in business isn't always a bucket of blueberries. I know firsthand I've been in the service business myself. We got started in the mechanical services business by purchasing a small airditioning repair business right here in Houston. Texas. We understood how the business worked and it became pretty easy to raise money and go out and buy a few more. And one thing led to another thing. And before you knew it we had acquired 200 companies with 36 thousand employees. We were dispatching over 10 thousand technicians to fix air conditioners, wires and pipes in homes and businesses every single day. And anyone in the service business knows that your customer's first impression is always 95 percent based on their interaction with your employees. In our case, it was a uniform plumber or an AC technician. Our customer survey said. They actually loved the way our employees slipped on those brightly colored boot bonnets. You know, the ones that they use to keep the floors clean. 

We actually called this the Booty Dance and it was part of their training. It makes no difference at all whether you're fixing up pipes or fixing up bridesmaids. The reality of the service business is that every employee can quit today and they could start doing their own booty dance on their own practically overnight. To be successful. US employers need to provide a work lifefe balance. That's better than employees can go out and create on their own. 

Employees actually want to feel appreciated and valued, they appreciate that and they reciprocate with loyalty and dedication and productivity. It's really as simple as that and with employees. While money matters, it's definitely not. The only thing that they need and in some cases require. Providing great health benefits to your employees greatly affects how they do on their job. Because let's be clear health is about as personal as it gets, it's supercharged with emotions. The right health benefits can make stress and worry turn into peace of mind. But being without health insurance can make employees feel irresponsible and exposed and that's bad for business these days. Even if you spend a small fortune on group health insurance, it's just not producing the usual results that employers have come to expect. That's because nowadays the only affordable health insurance options come with a painfully high deductible and coinsurance that could wipe out the royal family. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that you have to be on your deathbed before health insurance is gona pay for anything and the majority of employees are generally healthy well, they receive no value at all, nothing. 

They know it and they're not loving it. 

It may be a hard pill to swallow. But nearly 100 percent of the premiums that you pay for Group Health Insurance are actually only helping a very, very small percentage of your employees. So is the juice really worth the squeeze. Now I don't intend to take a bunch of time talking about the shortcomings of traditional health insurance because I've talked about that in other videos on this channel. But if the goal here is to come up with something better, then it's pretty important to understand the competition, in other words, better than what. It's no secret that Group Health insurance has been the gold standard of employee health benefits for a really long time 90 years to be exact. But the premiums have just gotten out of control, and now only the largest companies can afford to keep up with the cost of group health insurance. To counter premium increases, small employers end up asking employees to pay more of the premiums, pay higher deductibles, and even more in coinsurance. 

This has been going on for years and it's finally reached the tipping point where many employees, especially the healthy ones, are feeling more resentful than appreciative. That's called a negative ROI and it's no secret that the traditional value of employee health insurance continues to decline year after year and that group health insurance is no longer being seen as a reward by a large majority of your healthy employees. But it's 2022 post panemmic and lots of things have changed and employee health benefits are no exception. So let's shift gears for just a minute and talk about the newest alternatives that are producing healthy and happy employees and a positive ROI for small employers. So let's imagine we landed in a weird new world where health insurance had never been invented before and we're going to get to design health benefits from the ground up. Well, first, we'd make sure that every employee had any time access to routine healthcare from a doctor they knew and trusted. 

Because common sense tells us that no matter what happens, every employee will always need routine healthcare throughout the year. So instead of using health insurance to pay for care, we know that's going to happen. We give every employee an unlimited primary care membership instead. So employees pay nothing for a long list of routine, preventative and primary care needs. They have any time access to a dedicated care team before diving into the expensive world of higher level health care or an emergency room. Worse yet, this new membership approach to primary care is revolutionary because it completely eliminates the well-known conflicts of traditional feefor service healthcare. Where the sicker you are, the more money they make. 

Not anymore with a Health Sharing . Your dedicated doctor and care team are only motivated to keep patients healthy, and since most  services can be delivered virtually, it's super easy and effortless for employees to get exactly the healthcare they need anytime, anywhere, no long appointment times and no sick waiting rooms. And because it's a membership, there are zero out-of-pocket costs for employees, no matter how many times they use it. Now, if an employees's primary cure team recommends a specialist, then the employee will just pay the cash price for the visit. If that turns into something more serious like advanced diagnostics, a surgery, or even a hospital stay, then employees can count on a medical costsharing membership to pay the rest of the bills. With a costsharing membership, employees are only on the hook for a low out-ofpock amount known as the Initial Unshared Amount or IUA. 

It works a lot like a deductible except that the IUA is tied to the episode of care. Unlike health insurance where an illness late in the year could lead to the employee paying the deductible twice, that's not how it works with medical costuming, so whether it's a weekend in the ER or a long battle with something really nasty. Once the IUA has been paid by the member, the rest of the employees' medical bills are fully shared by the sharing community. This new strategy for employee health benefits ends up being typically 30 to 60 percent less than traditional health insurance. 

Because better health benefits need to be more affordable for both employers and employees, membership-based Health Sharing  ensures that every employee has unlimited no- cost access to the routine medical care any time that they need it. Health Sharing  imposes no network restrictions like insurance does, so employees are free to choose any provider they want to get the care that they need. I mean, come on health insurance in the day and age of the internet, friends on Facebook and Google.

Does anyone really need to pay Blue Cross a premium to help find a doctor? I don't think so. These and other innovations and employee health benefits are leaving traditional health insurance in the dust and level the playing field for small businesses who have to compete in the hiring wars against the corporate giants. For the best employees, this new generation of health benefits is far better.

For employees and for beating big employers at their own game. We want to hear from you, so please leave your thoughts, comments and questions in the comment section below.