Mercer Marsh Benefits recently announced the launch of Benefits Forecaster^TM in Singapore, a tool for companies to predict their benefits costs with greater accuracy, uncover possible savings opportunities, and assess the sustainability of benefits programs, while providing the data-driven metrics which companies need to track their benefits ROI successfully.

The launch of Benefits Forecaster^TM in Hong Kong, China and the Philippines will follow in 2017. The cost of medical benefits is rapidly escalating, as much as 10-20% year-on-year, according to Mercer Marsh Benefits Total Health and Choice in Benefits 2013 – 2014 Survey, and Human Resources (HR) is being held accountable for this increased spend.

This is compelling organizations to find a simpler way of understanding where the gaps and risks exist in their current employee benefits programs. This information is critical as it allows companies to predict their benefits costs and plan savings in the future.

Liana Attard, Mercer’s Consulting Leader for Asia, Middle East & Africa, shared findings from a recent Mercer Marsh Benefits survey, “Employers in Asia typically collect medical claims history data, absence data and physical check-up data from their employees. However, less than 10% of HR professionals use a data-driven approach to determine if their benefits program is truly meeting their employees’ needs and their bottom line.”

Attard added, “Tapping into the power of employees’ data is critical in successfully managing a sustainable and meaningful benefits program.”

Benefits Forecaster^TM provides three tangible and measurable solutions – clinic review, claims audit and targeted wellness intervention.

In addition to offering solutions that could potentially provide significant savings, Benefits Forecaster^TM also allows companies to collect important insights about their workforce and organization, such as:

• Align their workforce data with medical costs.
• Conduct predictive modelling on future costs of benefits and ROI.
• Understand the industry benchmark by comparing their average outpatient costs (e.g. general practitioners) to others in the market.
• Find out if they are paying for claims that are incorrectly adjudicated.
• Understand their employees’ key health risks and provide tangible and measurable interventions to address those risks.

Michel Faucher, Mercer’s Growth Markets, Employee Health and Benefits Leader adds, “Based on our experience in understanding the difficulties faced by clients in defining and measuring benefits ROI, we are quite certain that leveraging a data diagnostics tool such as Benefits Forecaster^TM can assist in profiling employee health risks and predict future benefit costs, offering innovative interventions that are measurable.”

Through data-driven recommendations, HRs can be in a better position to influence key decision-makers and be a strategic partner in finding benefits solutions that could make sense for employees and businesses.

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