Too many solutions, not enough time (or money)
Employers today have plenty on their plate, yet rising healthcare costs continue to top their list. In response, the market has flooded with point solutions that strive to be the silver bullet for health ailments, health management, member engagement and cost reduction. It’s good business, with half of the nation’s employers contracting with four to nine point solutions, but it means even more work for human resource leaders, who are left to contend with a dizzying amount of vendor vetting, performance analysis and ongoing management. That work doesn’t come cheap. One study found that the direct cost of employers sorting through the complexities of health and benefits administration was approximately $21.57 billion.
Workers don’t have it much easier. Already responsible for managing their own complex health needs in a confusing healthcare system, they’re forced to navigate a fractured medical landscape littered with point solutions—a frustrating experience that can feel like a full-time job in itself.
It’s been clear for some time that the only way out of this mess is by integrating point solutions and other healthcare touchpoints into a single, cohesive system. But while it might make for an easy buzzword, the truth is that real “integration”—which requires the painstaking coordination and alignment of countless parties—has proven elusive.
Making integration a reality
Backed by years of research, Celeste Health Solutions has developed a system and set of best practices that finally make integration a reality and allow employers and members to get the most out of their point solutions.
We’ve laid out the findings in “Finding a Real Solution to the Point Solutions Problem," a report that shares our discoveries and serves as a guide to our Innovations Hub, a curated point solutions ecosystem that’s uniquely positioned to solve healthcare challenges that have long bedeviled the industry.
In the report, we outline a three-step process that’s solved the problem of integration where other approaches have failed:
1. Break through the clutter
While it’s great to have choices, an overwhelming number of employers want or need help understanding and narrowing down the vast array of point solutions available to them. In our experience we’ve found the best way is to do the work for them. A carefully chosen selection of high-quality point solutions is like a wardrobe that’s been hand-curated by a personal shopper: everything you need, nothing you don’t and none of your precious time lost in the search. That’s why our Market Solutions team has vetted more than 300 solutions across multiple clinical categories to provide a curated, comprehensive hub to meet every employer’s needs.
2. Streamline the process
The more point solutions an employer decides to offer, the more work for them on the backend. To solve this, Celeste has established streamlined processes to integrate and implement each point solution in such a way as to enable turnkey management of the entire administrative process. Instead of dealing with multiple vendors, employers partner with just one—Celeste—which increases point solution effectiveness overall for employers and members alike, unburdening employers of a huge, expensive and time-consuming administrative responsibility.
3. Optimize member engagement
While individual point solutions are often developed and touted as though they exist in a vacuum, the truth is that they’re only one of many health benefits that an employee has access to. Moving between them can be a chore at best; at worst, it’s a complete nonstarter. That’s why Celeste brings it all together with a frontline care team of Care Advocates who can help guide members toward using the correct benefit at the correct time— point solution or otherwise— in the context of their healthcare plan more broadly. Or, if members prefer, they can manage these point solutions themselves through the Celeste with Accolade app, an intuitive hub and “single front door” that brings their benefits all together in one place.
Read the full report for more
Curious to know more about how we’re optimizing point-solution performance? Check out our free report, “Finding a Real Solution to the Point Solutions Problem,” and see for yourself how Celeste helps employers and their workers navigate and utilize their healthcare benefits to the fullest.
