University of Utah Health is rolling out the Silicon Slopes Health Plan
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The solar units on the University of Utah Hospital on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020, as they announce they’re overcapacity for coronavirus hospitalizations.
Despite the financial uncertainty on this planet proper now, Utah has quite a bit to be enthusiastic about. We have an especially low unemployment price. A younger and rising inhabitants. A vibrant tech sector. And, in line with Forbes, the quickest rising economy within the nation.
Yet this continued development hinges on one thing we desperately lack: affordable health insurance for the start-ups which can be rising, transferring into and increasing their workforces in Utah — the businesses driving a lot of this development.
Health care advantages are costly, and plenty of younger firms merely can’t afford them. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that companies with 5 workers might pay $100,000 within the first 12 months — not together with copays and coinsurance. That’s simply not sustainable for our startups to develop and thrive. And with out health advantages, they’re at a extreme drawback when attempting to draw the very best expertise.
Health care prices are skyrocketing, not just for insurance premiums and care, but additionally in misplaced productiveness when staff are sick. That’s why it’s time to re-examine the standard health care mannequin. How can we transfer past a purely transactional strategy, the place it’s all about paying premiums and claims, and put extra give attention to the final word purpose of protecting workers wholesome? How can payors, employers and suppliers come collectively to discover a new strategy that helps each workers and companies thrive?
Our two establishments — University of Utah Health and Silicon Slopes — have spent the final 5 years working collectively to reply these questions. We imagine we’ve discovered an answer that not solely meets the needs of Utah’s startups, but additionally has the potential to form the way forward for employer-sponsored health care — right here and throughout the nation.
The key to this new strategy is collaboration. A brand new and modern collaboration. We’ve mixed the strengths of University of Utah Health’s main hospitals, medical doctors and analysis capabilities with Silicon Slopes’ digital, information and expertise management to facilitate a brand new mannequin for delivering health insurance and new health care options. Working collectively towards the identical purpose, and collaborating from a number of angles (health care and expertise, payors and employers, suppliers and workers), offers us the chance to create more healthy office cultures.
Prevention pays a necessary position. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, largely preventable and extremely manageable illnesses account for 75% of each greenback spent on health care within the U.S. If we are able to discover higher methods to intervene early, we’ll not solely stop sickness, we’ll additionally get monetary savings and enhance firm health.
To get there, we’re internet hosting seminars with human assets leaders and CEOs from Silicon Slopes member firms to debate their greatest health care points and methods we are able to handle them earlier. We’re giving payors the chance to hearken to what employers need, and employers the flexibility to listen to how payors, together with our specialists and medical doctors, can assist.
And we’re harnessing the massive potential of knowledge.
The expertise experience inside the Silicon Slopes neighborhood can assist us do one thing by no means accomplished earlier than for small companies — collect and share nameless health care information about particular populations. This is so worthwhile for figuring out tendencies, understanding how workers are utilizing their plans, and discovering methods we are able to enhance. In flip, the tech firms can develop new packages and options based mostly on the info we uncover.
The final result of all this collaboration is the Silicon Slopes Health Plan, a brand new type of insurance plan designed particularly for the Silicon Slopes inhabitants — younger workers with rising households who need beginning care, pediatrics, ladies’s health, males’s health and behavioral health. It contains each physician and hospital within the state, permitting workers to maintain present physician relationships, whereas decreasing the prices for everybody.
With glorious health programs and care suppliers in our state, plus the wealthy analysis capabilities of University of Utah Health and the expertise management of Silicon Slopes, Utah is uniquely positioned to paved the way.
Michael Good, M.D., is CEO of University of Utah Health.
Michael Good, M.D., is CEO of University of Utah Health.
Clint Betts is CEO and president of the nonprofit Silicon Slopes.
