AH072 - The Benefits You Probably Didn't Know You Have, with Marsha Perry

Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity.‍

00:27] Justin Venneri: Hello and welcome to another episode of Astonishing Healthcare. This is Justin Venneri, your host and Senior Director of Communications at Capital Rx. And joining me in the studio today is Marsha Perry, who is an absolute joy to work with and speak with about basically everything, especially when we're talking about benefits, which is the topic today. And I hope everyone likes this one because it's broader than just pharmacy or health benefits. Marsha and I got to talking at a recent off site and I wish I had a recorder on the table for that because she's our head of benefits and compensation here. Marsha, thanks so much for taking the time to do this.

[01:00] Marsha Perry: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the invitation.

[01:04] Justin Venneri: Let's start off with a minute or two on your background. Tell us about your path to being responsible for benefits and comp here at Cap Rx.

[01:11] Marsha Perry: Sure. So, I've been in all areas of human resources for my entire career. I have an MBA and several HR certifications: Senior Professional in Human Resources and Society for Human Resources Management, Senior Certified Professional certification. Also, I served in the Army National Guard as a medic. So, having that background also helps me with my foundation in benefits. So, it all ties in for me.

[01:34] Justin Venneri: That's why we love having you here. We talk to a lot of senior human resources and benefits folks out there because of our pharmacy benefit administration business. But that's just one sliver of the pie for you, right? This is broader, and I promise, listeners, I just want to frame things up and acknowledge how busy everyone is. So, Marsha, tell us a bit about your holistic benefits perspective and trying to craft a program that attracts and retains talent, for I mean, we're a growing company, national, remote, Health Tech… so a little bit savvy. How do you think about setting things up for a company like ours?

[02:07] Marsha Perry: So the big thing for me is reminding folks that benefits is more than just a one time of year during open enrollment when you have to make those elections. As a company, we need to put together a well-rounded and affordable package that provides good services and an extensive network. Again, not just in one state, but because we're a national company. I need to make sure we've got coverage in all states - having PPOs, preferred provider organizations where folks have the ability to go in and out of networks. So that's really big.

And also during open enrollment, people only think about medical, dental, and vision. But it's more than just that. You know, when you said holistic, it's about life insurance and the protection employees setting up for the people that they leave behind when they're gone. It's about accidents and counseling services, and it's also about planning for retirement. So there's a lot to benefit that folks don't think about until something goes wrong. So I’m really glad to be here today to remind folks to think about their benefits outside of when something goes wrong or just at open enrollment time.

[03:09] Justin Venneri: Makes sense. And like I said, I promise this would be about more than just pharmacy benefits. And it's great because it actually serves dual purpose. As a bit of a reminder for some of us, our colleagues here, there's different things that we might forget about that we have, but also could be helpful - hopefully there's some tips or suggestions that the audience can take away from this. One question I have for you is that there was a recent survey by Lockton, and we've quoted that before, but it showed that controlling costs has overtaken attracting and retaining talent in terms of a priority for this year. What do you think about that? Is it just a symptom of the times or something else going on there?

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[03:42] Marsha Perry: For some organizations, that actually may be true. However, good organizations should be balancing the benefits against the cost. A lot of organizations, they do just think about the bottom line, and it does affect their retention and it affects their recruitment. Here at Capital Rx, I'm glad to say that we're able to balance both to ensure that we not only have the good benefits, but we're also managing costs.

[04:06] Justin Venneri: Okay. And it just occurred to me to ask, given how comprehensive a benefits program can be, what's your relationship like with the finance team or the CFO? And that's Antonio in our case. But in general, in your past experience, or what do you think is important about that relationship between the head of compensation and benefits on the finance team?

[04:24] Marsha Perry: It is a very, very important relationship, and I have a great relationship with Antonio and our finance team. But I know that for benefits and compensation, I am the largest line item on the books for the organization. So I have to be cognizant of ensuring that I'm just not spending money. I negotiate like crazy with my vendors to get the best price, the best PEPM - per employee per month - rate for all the benefits; [I] negotiate as much as I can to put into the benefits that we have to keep costs low, not just for our employees, but also for our organization and providing those calculations. So, as the organization grows, finance is able to do the math and say, okay, we're going to be hiring this many more people based on the calculations that Marsha gave us. Benefits is also going to possibly cost us this much. So it is a very symbiotic relationship that we need to have in order to be successful.

[05:23] Justin Venneri: That makes sense. And then one thing that comes up a lot is point solution fatigue. And I imagine when you think about outside of the health benefits, there's even more different solutions and different vendors that you have to deal with - or manage relationships with. And then there's enrollment and engagement with those things, and getting people to actually use the benefits they have. How do you approach education and awareness and driving utilization of the benefits that you spend so much time evaluating and implementing?

[05:48] Marsha Perry: So for me, I take every opportunity and forum to talk about benefits because I know not everybody's a benefits nerd like me. So, I always make sure to provide a comprehensive benefits guide. Cause that benefits guide during the year is your bible that my employees and their dependents can use as a reference.  

Also, the other thing is I always tell stories, and I tell stories about benefits to make it relatable because people will remember these things later and hopefully take it with them, and also tell their friends, “Hey, I learned this when I talked to Marsha about benefits.”

But I also take the opportunity not just to talk, but I also take the opportunity to listen. So what's new in the industry? Like I said, you know, I'm a member of SHRM and some other organizations. So I'm always reading industry information. I go to symposiums, I talk to different brokers, and my peers. What new benefit is out there that we don't have that we want to add? We do an analysis. And for example, last year, in thinking about what gaps we had, we added pet benefit insurance to our coverage because we didn't have that, because a lot of people said, “Hey, you know, I've got a dog, I've got a cat.” We also offer pet discount insurance to our employees, which includes dog and cat telehealth. So very interesting benefit, definitely.

[07:07] Justin Venneri: And the benefit guide, for example, I know ours is pretty comprehensive, but do you see varied lengths, varied depth of content that go into those? What would you recommend? Any rules of thumb or anything? Is it. Does it have to have like a nugget on every single benefit you have or how much detail do you go into with those when you're creating it?

[07:25] Marsha Perry: So there's a couple things that are very important because it's not just about using it for the current employees that you have. We also use it as a recruiting tool. So you do want to have an overview explaining each of the benefits, but you have to have the cost. Unfortunately, there's some people who have benefit guides out there, and it's like, all right, you've got this, but how much is it going to cost me? You know, we need to provide that and explain different things, like how often are deductions taken? What if I have a life event during the year, so I get married, I get divorced. We explain all of that in the benefits guide. How do I access our system that actually has the benefit information in it? So, the benefit guide has that. It has all the phone numbers, the websites, information on the different apps that are available.

And I tell folks the apps are my favorite thing because - and I say this all the time - I never check my mail. I'm the absolute worst at checking my mail. So when insurance cards come in, I'm the benefits lady, and I don't know where my insurance cards are. When I get the mail, I hold it up to the light, I feel it. If I don't feel anything, I toss it, and I toss my cards. But the apps are always with you because I always have my phone. So that's very important to me.  

And also, going back to utilization, one of the things that folks may not realize that's a part of my job is I meet or look at the utilization reports for all of our benefits quarterly. So, I see what's being used, what's overutilized, and what's underutilized. Where can we do some more communication? What can we push that is a great benefit that folks don't realize that we have? So, that's one of the other things that is involved with what I do.

[09:00] Justin Venneri: And this, well, one is why we get along and have longer discussions than we budget for when we put them on the calendar: because of the storytelling, which is always great. And two is where we get to the fun part of this discussion, which is the benefits you didn't know you have. I like how you said that. And so maybe starting with app utilization, what's one thing you do to try to drive utilization of the app for the benefits program?

[09:20] Marsha Perry: The benefits program, it's always best to have a 1, 2, 3, how do I do this? One pagers… if the instructions are too long, people aren't going to do it. Not for nothing, you know, folks don't read. It's not that they don't want to. People don't have time. So, if we have a quick picture that says, “Hey, download this app, do this, do this, and you're in.” That's the best way to do it.

[09:41] Justin Venneri: Got it. And then what are some of the benefits you see? Because you see all the data that we're offering, or that, you know, other employers offer too, that are really like great benefits, and employees just rarely or too infrequently take advantage of them.

[09:55] Marsha Perry: The big one is supplemental coverages. So a lot of time, those supplemental coverages have a built-in benefit that'll pay you each year when you get preventive screening. So if you get your annual physical exam, your mammography or colonoscopy, if you have a critical illness benefit, that wellness reimbursement is built in. Also talking about the benefits that you may have forgotten you had or didn't know you have, the big ones that we have are accidental injury and hospital indemnity. So those are also supplemental coverages.  

So if you sign up for those, it'll pay for… my favorite is when you have kids. And people who have kids know this all the time. You're always going to the emergency room. Tommy was outside playing basketball and sprained an ankle or got hit in the head with a ball. And so now you're in the emergency room, and there may be a concussion, there may be stitches. If you have an accidental injury policy, it'll pay for that. You'll get a check, so, you know, get your kids to pay you back for all those injuries. Hospital indemnity is a great one because if you're admitted to the hospital and you're there and admitted for more than 24 hours, it'll pay you a certain amount and then also more for each day.  

If you know that, “Hey, I'm pregnant (or my spouse is pregnant), we're going to have a baby,” you know, you're going to be in the hospital for two or three days. It's a benefit that will definitely pay for itself. So it's a wonderful and good thing to have for accidental injury. I have another story for that. A couple years back, I shared this one with employees as well. I was driving home at the time. I had lived out in Pennsylvania in the woods, and it was October, about 7 o'clock at night, and a deer hit me, you know, and folks are like, “No, Marsha, you hit a deer.” No, the deer hit me.

[11:38] Justin Venneri: I've been there. I believe you. I believe you.

[11:40] Marsha Perry: Right. He T-boned me. He T-boned my truck. My knee hit the door. I mean, horrible. Horrible. Really. You know, bad accident. I couldn't even open the door after the accident. I had to get my knee X-rayed. If I had an accidental injury benefit at the time, I would have gotten paid for going to the emergency room. I would have gotten paid for the X-ray that I had taken. So, stuff like that, it pays for itself. And for anyone who's concerned about the deer, just so you know, he got up, he shook his head off, and he ran into the woods. So, the deer was fine. So, accidental injury is a great benefit to have for yourself and for your family.

[12:15] Justin Venneri: And then is there another benefit that you think maybe is like, quote unquote, off the radar screen that chief human resource officers or other benefits directors in a similar seat to the one you sit in can think about adding or focusing educational efforts on if it's underutilized?

[12:31] Marsha Perry: Absolutely. The big one. In my entire career, no matter where I've been, whatever industry, the biggest underutilized benefit is dental. People are not going to the dentist. You get two free cleanings a year. All you have to do is show up, smile, get your teeth clean, and go home. And people aren't doing that. And your dental health affects your overall health. If you get an abscess in your tooth, that abscess, that infection can go to your heart, and you can get infection in your heart. I know somebody who actually almost died from something like that.

So I do try to remind folks, and we're gonna be doing some pushes to remind folks. Please go to the dentist. A lot of people don't think about their teeth because it's like, “It's not bothering me, so good.” But all of a sudden, you're eating that Jolly Rancher, and now your tooth hurts. And it's a bigger problem because you haven't gone to the dentist in over a year. So that's a big one. I think that everyone should really, really, really push dental health and push dental cleanings.

[13:30] Justin Venneri: That's amazing. I wouldn't have thought that you surprised me. I thought because of the pandemic. I mean, it's going back five years now, but everybody going on Zooms all of a sudden was more concerned about their aesthetic and their teeth and how they looked. So that stopped. Or that never picked up steam.

[13:44] Marsha Perry: Well, people were concerned about veneers and things like that. But your overall regular dental health, I mean, that's cosmetic. That's the first thing in the front, but all the stuff in the back, you’ve got to make sure your molars are taken care of. You’ve got to make sure that there's no gingivitis, that you are reminding people to floss. It's little things like that that folks aren't paying attention to. So it's a big thing. Dental is underutilized.

[14:07] Justin Venneri: All right. And you have the data, so I trust you. That's good. One more thing that I know is it's obviously a hotter topic. I have to ask you about GLP-1s. We talk a lot about them on this show and out in the field over the last year and a half, if not a little bit longer, more broadly speaking, because it's one of those things that is a new class of drugs. It's driving costs higher for a lot of people. What are one or two things that you think plan sponsors out there or benefits directors out there can or should consider when making a decision whether or not to cover them for their members and then maybe how to cover them, or do you have any suggestions or just things people could think about that you'd be comfortable sharing?

[14:46] Marsha Perry: For me, the overall benefit of GLP-1s outweighs the cost, because employees who use GLP-1s they're using them for weight loss and, you know, managing their weight. And so it lowers comorbidities. So if your weight goes down, your risk of hypertension goes down, diabetes goes down, high cholesterol goes down. So we're no longer having to worry about Marsha being at risk of stroke because she had all this additional weight on her. So I believe that it's a wonderful thing to have.  

The other thing is that a lot of folks don't realize. They think that GLP-1s are sometimes like a magic wand or a magic button. Somebody, you know, takes a shot, and all of a sudden they're skinny. It takes a while for doctors to titrate or get the right dosage for a person. So, you know, they start low, and then they may move it up. So it may be up six months or a year before sometimes people even see that movement on the scale. I've had some of my peers say, “Well, we'll authorize it, but only for six months.” But if you don't get the dosage titrated to the right amount for that person in six months, that's not helpful. I would rather get the person to the point where we're now helping them to lower the comorbidities. They're no longer at risk of heart attack, stroke, things like that because they're losing the weight.  

However, on the flip side, cost is definitely a big factor, and there may be some side effects. The product may not work, and you may have to move to another one, or it just may not work for you at all. So I do recommend that people who need this definitely work with their doctors. This is not a recommendation, but it's one of those things that I believe can have good benefits when used appropriately.

[16:36] Justin Venneri: Okay, thanks for that. I think people enjoy hearing your perspective on GLP-1s. My last question for you, and I ask everyone, is to tell us a good story at the end of this episode. So what's the most astonishing thing you've seen that relates to our discussion today? That's, of course, safe and compliant to share. Tell us a good story or send us off with something that surprised you over your years of managing compensation and benefits?

[16:58] Marsha Perry: Sure. This actually happened within the last year. So I had an employee come to me. She was really upset. She had to take her son to the doctor. He was cooking on the stove, and he turned the pot of water, noodles, whatever it was, onto his hand and burned his hand really badly. So she took her son to urgent care. Urgent care said, “Oh, this is bad. You need to go to the emergency room.” They did. And he had all these burns. And I said, “Do you have accidental injury?” And she said, “What are you talking about?”

Again, benefits you forgot you have. I looked it up. She had it. She got a nice check. 'Cause they paid for burns. They paid for that emergency. No, it's not paid for the emergency room visit, but they have a schedule of payment for benefits for things that happen. So she was able to get a check for that. So that's the reason why I tell folks all the time, talk to HR, see if there's a benefit that you may have that could actually pay you back that you've been paying premium into. So that's something that I think was a good reminder. And she was really grateful. She was like, yeah, it's about time that kid kind of contributes to the household. It's a joke. It's a joke.

[18:01] Justin Venneri: [Laughter] But hopefully there's not too much information here. We're not going to get in trouble…

[18:05] Marsha Perry: No, no, no. I got permission. I talked to her this morning. She gave me permission to tell the story. But we get all kinds of interesting things that come across. Our desks in our lives in human resources, and a lot of serious things. And, you know, Justin, you've worked with me for a while. I bring comedy into it because some of it can be really sad, but I try to bring fun to the benefits game, so I hope you find this to be fun.

[18:33] Justin Venneri: Definitely. And I mean, that's why we're here doing this. I guess not everybody out there has a podcast for their company that can kind of serve dual purpose of entertainment, but informing half of the reason we're on this is because we had a conversation about something I didn't realize I had a benefit for and I was like, oh my gosh, maybe that's a good episode. So here we are.  

Well, thank you very much, Marsha, for taking the time today. I really enjoyed chatting with you and look forward to hopefully having you back on. Maybe we can talk about some trends, or maybe we can bring some data. I don't know. Whatever we can do to raise awareness and help people out there, if they like this episode.

[19:06] Marsha Perry: Thank you so much, and again, thank you for the invitation, and I look forward to coming back.

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