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    March Dinner Meeting: Mercer’s 2015 Employer-Sponsored Health Plans Survey

    Date: March 14, 2016, 5:30pm – 8:00pm
    Organizer:
    HRMA Princeton
    Location:
    Hyatt Regency Princeton, Carnegie Center, Rt. 1.
    Networking & registration begins at 5:30pm, meeting starts at 6:00pm.
    Price:
    Advance registration: $45 members, $55 non-members. $10 extra at the door. $20 for students and qualified in-transition individuals. Registration opens Monday, February 29 and closes at 11:59 PM on Thursday, March10.
    Event Type:
    Meeting
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    HRMA Dinner Meeting

     Mercer’s 2015 Employer-Sponsored Health Plans Survey

    Presented by

    Mercer, NJ Office

    March 14, 2016

    Princeton Hyatt Regency

    5:30pm to 8:00pm

     **This program is approved for 1 general credit by the HRCI and 1 professional development credit by SHRM**

    For registration please go to http://hrma-nj.shrm.org/

    THE LATEST RESULTS ARE IN!

    With health reform’s excise tax in their sights, employers held health benefits cost per employee to 3.8% in 2015, Mercer’s latest survey found. Low-cost consumer-directed health plans were key in slowing cost growth as enrollment in these plans reached a milestone 25% of all covered employees. Employers also added resources like telemedicine and specialty transparency tools to help employees better manage potentially higher out-of-pocket cost.

    What’s ahead? Employers predict cost will rise by 4.3% in 2016, with about half making changes to their programs to hold down cost. Despite this moderate cost growth, an estimated 29% of employers have plans that will hit the excise tax cost threshold in 2018 if they make no changes before then, and over two-fifths will hit by 2022. That means long-term cost management, always important, is now an imperative.

    WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

    Learn about the strategies employers are using to successfully control health spending and mitigate excise tax risk. Topics include:

    • The growth in CDHPs and how employers are making these high-deductible plans more effective engines for driving true consumerism
    • The shift in thinking about how to engage employees in caring for their own health
    • Innovative strategies employers are using to offer an attractive – and sustainable – benefit program in the health reform era

    WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

    CHROs, Senior HR Leaders, and Benefit Directors.

    Our speaker:

    Barry Schilmeister is a Principal in Mercer's Health and Benefits business, based in Mercer's New York consulting office. He has been involved in insurance, benefits and actuarial work for forty years, most of that time in group benefits consulting, the last twenty-three years with Mercer.

    As an actuary and senior consultant at Mercer, Barry advises large employers on the strategic planning, structure, and financing of their group benefit programs, focused largely on health care.  Barry has spoken on the impact of health care reform to many area human resources and health care industry groups. He co-heads Mercer Health & Benefits’ Hospital Industry Solutions Group, which brings together the intellectual capital of Mercer’s national network of consultants to the health care industry.  Barry is the New York spokesperson for Mercer's National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, the largest survey of its kind.

    Barry has been quoted in such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Crain's New York Business, Consumer Reports, Smart Money and CNNMoney, discussing the cost of employer-sponsored health care and benefit trends, including health care reform.  He has appeared on CNBC, Business Week TV, the NBC Nightly News and the Fox Business Network, addressing a variety of topical benefits issues.

    Barry graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics.