– Communicate the importance of medical emergency folders for faculty to grab and go.
We talked in depth about this in our article on preparing expat faculty for late night medical emergencies. Once staff are empowered to deal with medical emergencies, other aspects of using their medical insurance will come easier.
We like to recommend handing out these folders as soon as staff return. If not everyone has been given folders an orientation should be held ASAP where they can be distributed.
– Make all relevant documents readily available on your school’s cloud drive
While the insurer’s member website and app is an important resource, there will also be certain people that would prefer to just go into your shared drive to find their table of benefits or to download a copy of the claim form. For this reason, you should always make all the relevant documents easy to access on the school’s shared/cloud drive.
– Put up our free flyers in staff common areas
Our flyers let staff know what actions to take depending on their situation, allowing them to handle it themselves.
As an HRD, HRM and school leader, if a member of the faculty comes to you with a question related to the medical insurance plan, you should be asking them one simple question. “Have you contacted our insurer?”.
If they say “no”, please ask them to do so.
98/100 of questions or issues can be handled by the insurer and there is no need for an escalation.
After all, you pay the insurer high premiums to handle things without the school having to worry or get involved.
Of course there are situations which might require an escalation above your insurer, and this is where your broker can help. They are experts in insurance so you don’t have to be. You should be able to rely on them to handle all escalations that can’t be handled by your insurer, such as help with claims disputes (for example). So step 2 of the recommended escalation procedure for your staff is to ask them to contact the school’s broker. If the answer to the question “Have you contacted our insurer?” is “yes”, then the next question should always be “Have you contacted our broker?”. Following this approach means your insurer or broker will handle all aspects of the health insurance, freeing up your valuable time
– Promote your insurer’s value added services
Many insurers have free value-added services that they make available to their insurance members. But we find international schools typically don’t understand these services well. Examples of these services include:
- Second opinion service – helps your faculty get reassurance about the diagnosis and treatment path that their doctor has recommended
- Online/video doctor consultation – your faculty members can consult a doctor from their home or desk (usually via the insurer’s app), saving valuable time and money
- International employee assistance program – designed to help staff handle emotional stresses and strains inside and outside of the workplace
You can find more information here about the above-mentioned telehealth services and some of their advantages for your school.
Ask your insurer or broker for posters so that you can promote these important value-added services to your faculty. It’s an important part of helping them live a healthy lifestyle.
After implementing these tips, you should be able to simplify faculty medical insurance. Don’t hesitate to contact us for further assistance with your schools insurance.
