What specific health benefits are in demand, or aren’t used?

We find practitioners such as physiotherapists, massage therapists, and chiropractors are the most highly used under our benefits plan, however the demand for access to mental health practitioners is the highest it’s ever been. Strangely, the benefit that is the most underused is the health care spending account.

I’ve found that certain paramedical practitioners are used more than other with the main ones being massage therapists, chiropractors and physiotherapists. I also find that vision benefits are in demand, however a lot of companies don’t provide a lot of coverage for this. Of course drug benefits and dental benefits are also well used.

Mental health benefits are greatly in demand and probably not robust enough for a comprehensive enough support program. We have had quite a bit of out of pocket expenses in this area.

Typically when benefits are under used, it comes down to employees not being familiar enough with them. People know how to use drugs, dental and health practitioners because they’re high frequency benefits. Health Spending accounts, EAP’s, and even some mental health coverages are not as frequent or common so people might be hesitant to use them or explore them. As an example for mental health; some plans cover psycho therapy, while others cover Psychology, understanding which is covered and how to access which one your plan covers can be confusing. Mental Health is also a topic employees might not be comfortable asking HR for help with.

Making sure your program doesn’t have those “hurdles” and designing a good communication strategy around the benefits plan will greatly help to increase engagement and appreciation.

Mental Health Benefits are on the rise. Telemedicine is also increasingly desirable. COVID-19 has increased focus on self-care, making wellness perks an increasingly desirable feature in employee benefit plans.

Mental health benefits and short term disability are in demand and are being used. EAP usage has increased but is not fully utilized. The health spending is being used for employee portion of meds and glasses but could also be used for employee portion of benefits that help with mental health – like massage and therapists.

I feel like chiropractic and massage therapists could be in demand more than ever from people who were working from home and continue working remotely without the proper setup of desks, monitor heights, etc.. I definitely have been using and have already reached my maximum amounts for the year on each. Reflexology was added as a new paramedical practitioner and psychologists, social workers, clinical counsellors, therapists and psychotherapists paramedical coverage increased by $250.

We, too, have seen an increase in demand for mental health services, and doubled our annual maximum/covered member recently for that reason. As for underutilized HSA, we identified this about 10 years ago. At that time, we introduced the option of a Wellness (taxable) Spending account as an option for employees. So, each year, plan members get to choose how to allocate their spending account credits (including being able to split them between the two). Eligible expenses under the taxable account include things like: sports equipment, registered arts and fitness classes, monthly/annual sports facility passes, alternate health therapies (not covered under HSA). Since the introduction of this option, we have seen a significant drop in forfeited credits. We manage the administration of the taxable account in-house and reimburse through payroll, and the non-taxable HSA is still through our third-party benefits carrier.

Our benefits include Ostopathy and I had to google to find out what that even was. The major ones are for sure hit the most.

I think there are areas within a benefits package when you go to tender for them could be better explained or maybe replaced with more relevant ones or just more money in the ones you know get used I would hope.

The EAP is under-utilized in our company. Employees really want mental health assistance but still have a fear that confidentiality is an issue no matter how hard we ensure their privacy is guaranteed.

At a former company we also found the HCSA and EAP were being underused. It was frustrating because HR had to build our business case to have these items added to our resources. We held information sessions and “advertised” these services to our employee population. When we had our annual company BBQ (pre-Covid) we always invited our clients and suppliers/vendors to set-up booths to exhibit their products. We added an employee vendor section and invited our benefit reps, our EAP provider, a representative from Perkopolis, Mr. Safety Shoe, etc. This was very popular as the employees then were able to speak to representatives directly. We saw an uptick in usage and our EAP usage for counseling increased during COVID. Our paramedical services also increased and when an employee maxed out their coverage, they understood that they could then utilize their HCSA.

Definitely mental health- not utilizing EFAP programs enough

EAP is underused. Dental is highly used in our company.