Communication To Your Staff About Healthcare Should Start Now

Whether you’re a fan of the new healthcare reform or not, the recent passage of the bill requires that you help your staff understand how it will impact them. There are still a lot of unknowns, but the time is now to begin communicating.

This guest post by Daniel Touizer, founder and CEO of Cinergy Health, will help you get started.

1. Understanding the bill:

There are different factors that play into how this bill will directly affect your business, and as a business owner, the first thing you must do is make sure that you understand how it will affect your company. For example:

• If your company employs more than 50 people, you must provide all employees with health insurance, or pay a penalty fee for every uninsured employee.

• If your company has 25 employees or less, you would get tax credits to help buy insurance for your employees.

These factors, along with others must be fully understood before jumping into explanations to your employees.

2. Communicate:

Once you understand how this bill will directly affect your business, you must properly inform your employees to ensure their understanding. For example:

• Send out a company wide memo simply outlining how this bill will affect the company and its employees, how you are taking the necessary steps to fully understand this bill, and how you will keep your employees updated as more information is learned.

• Hold a staff meeting as an open forum with the health care reform as the sole topic, allowing your employees to ask questions freely. Although you may not know all of the correct answers just yet, simply acknowledging this bill and the changes that may occur is a great start.

3. Execute:

Within the first year of implementation major changes will occur so you must be prepared, and make sure your employees are aware of your plan of action. Be able to address the following questions:

• Will you provide your employees with health insurance? If not, are you prepared to pay the penalty-fee?

• Are you going to offer other suggestions of health insurance to your employees?

4. Don’t Panic:

Remember this bill is new for everyone. If you are having trouble understanding it, explain to your employees that you’re in the process of internalizing how this will affect the company and will issue a statement in the near future. It is better to have a full understanding of the bill before you explain, then to mislead your employees with false information.

The passing of the new health care reform bill means immense changes for all Americans and their businesses. It is important for everyone to understand this new bill and how it will affect us, and as a business leader, it is crucial to have the capability to successfully communicate with your employees how this bill will affect their lives.

Daniel Touizer is founder and CEO of Cinergy Health, a nationwide provider of innovative and affordable health and life insurance.