Employees and their Health Insurance
People could get health insurance policies by themselves or through their employers, such as dental clinics. Clinics can give different types of health insurance to their employees, ranging from “Individual health insurance (with or without a defined contribution allowance),” “small group health insurance policies” from the SHOP Marketplaces, “private small group plan,” and more (Merhar 2016b). Health insurance covers employees’ medical expenses, but they also serve the clinics in practical ways. Providing good health insurance could help dentists employ and retain good employees, avoiding the costly process of hiring new people.
Health insurance help persuade employees to work at the clinics and stay there. Clinics compete with each other to hire the best people so that they could provide excellent customer service to their patients (Ericksen and Twigg 2006). Good health insurance policies could help draw in these people (Ericksen and Twigg 2006). According to Peter Cargill, “an entrepreneurial executive leader and founder of Dentreps.com—the Dental Jobs Site, and DR Recruiting.com—Dentistry’s Recruiting Solution,” “If you’re [i.e. dental assistants] well qualified or experienced, you’ll have more leverage when asking for benefits, as you may have numerous job offers. Many studies in this area prove that employers with better overall benefits packages get the great employees almost every time, sometimes even when their hourly wage is lower” (2016). Bent Ericksen and Tim Twigg, founder and president, respectively, of Brent Ericksen and Associates, explain that potential employees accept offers based on the quality of the benefit packages because they see benefits “as an indication of how much employers value and care about their employees” (2006). Additionally, health insurance, such as “[employer-funded] individual health insurance,” may help clinics retain their employees for longer periods of time (Rosenberger 2014).
When employees leave due to bad benefits, lack of benefits, or for personal reasons, clinics have to spend a lot of money on finding and training new employees. Cargill states “Limiting or neglecting employee benefits has proven to reduce morale in the workplace and staff retention rates fall through the floor, leading to the higher costs of trying to hire new people to take these employees’ places” (2016). For instance, according to Christina Merhar from Zane Benefits, “Some studies (such as SHMR) predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs six to nine months’ salary on average. For a dental hygienist making $60,000 a year, that’s $30,000 to $45,000 in recruiting and training expenses” (2016a). Clinics also have to consider “[the cost] of hiring a new employee, including the advertising, interviewing, screening, and hiring,” “[cost] of on-boarding a new person, including training and management time,” the amount of time needed for the employee to adapt to their working environment, and the fact that “[other] employees who see high turnover tend to disengage and lose productivity” (Merhar 2016a).
Health insurance policies may not be the only factor in convincing people to work at certain clinics. However, they could still help clinics persuade people to work and stay employed there.
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