We got some nice press this week from a paper in Olney, Illinois. It’s a charming community (home of the White Squirrel!) with a lot of history – it was founded in 1841. Their paper is the Olney Daily Mail, and was written by Amanda Bain. I have to say I think Amanda captured my passion for helping the small businesses in communities like Olney quite well. At ECCHIC we are increasingly having great success in saving businesses in these places great savings while maintaining their desired level of benefits. And also … well, I’ll let her say it!
ECCHIC Assists Employers to Reduce Health Insurance Costs and Provide Better Benefits
[Posted July 13, 2018]
On July 17 an event will be held at The Holiday in Olney which could end up saving local employers hundreds of thousands of dollars in health insurance costs.
The no-charge event is open to employers from Olney and all surrounding communities.
The event is hosted by The ECCHIC Group (Employers Committed to Controlling Health Insurance Costs) in conjunction with Dr. Jillian Scherer, a direct primary care physician who helps families and individuals save thousands on health care costs.
ECCHIC was founded in the 90s by Howard Danzig, a business owner who grew extremely perturbed by the hidden and unnecessary costs of group health insurance.
Danzig was committed to providing quality health care benefits to his employees. He was also committed to uncovering fiscal waste through the application of his expertise in accounting and cost management.
He says, “When group insurance agents couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me what the underlying costs of medical services were, I tried to find answers. I learned that I was being made to pay a premium price while the big boys paid an institutionally discounted wholesale price.“
Danzig founded ECCHIC Group to level the playing field and to eliminate unnecessary costs for employers.
The group assists employers in providing sufficient, specialized, and quality health benefits to their employees by eliminating unnecessary third parties such as insurance brokers and agencies.
By linking employers directly to the health care resources in their communities, employees receive the exact coverage they need, at a much lower cost.
This helps keep the flow of money within the community and allows businesses to allocate the thousands of dollars saved to business development, employee salaries, and to feed the growth of their organizations rather than third party commissions.
Danzig explains that while ECCHIC helps make obvious the solutions for saving money and providing better coverage to employees, it never fails that certain organizational leadership will continue to make wasteful decisions.
He explained that public entities overpay more than anybody.
Danzig said, “Many of them just don’t take leadership in how the public funds are being spent … Take for example a school district in a rural community; the superintendent telling me they don’t have enough money to give their people a raise right now. At the same time, the cost of insuring an employee’s family was running $1600/month.”
“I showed the district how they could provide a greater benefit for half the cost.”
The district allegedly chose to look away from the obvious savings and continued to spend public money to provide an inferior benefit to employees at a higher cost.
Danzig said, “They take six figures of public money each month and throw it into a sink hole. For a district that can’t afford to give raises to the employees. If you think that’s the exception to the rule, that’s not. That’s mainstream.”
“Any public official who is not willing to seriously consider cut the middlemen out and work directly with their local providers and keep the money in the communities and support the very entities that support them with their tax dollars should be ashamed of themselves.”
Danzig explained that many employers understand the problem, they’ve looked at the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spend in administrative fees for insurance, and they still choose to work with an insurance agency.
He explained that the habit of running to an agent for a quick fix rather than doing the work to find an efficient solution is what has caused the insurance costs to get out of hand.
He said, “So many employers recognize what’s wrong and still go back to the same old same old, because they are friends or relatives of the broker.”
“Recently in southern Illinois … proved that 700,000 was going to come off their (city council’s) cost. The local broker complained to councilmen that she was going to lose her commission”
“You could put that perstill save you half a million.”
“The administrative cost alone was going to drop from $310,000 to $35,000 just on that one issue alone.“
Despite these numbers, the council allegedly chose to utilize the broker and to spend tax payer dollars on her six figure commission – six figures for just one account.
Danzig is committed to helping employers do the work to find the best solution for their employees. The upcoming workshop on July 17th will aim to do just that.
At the workshop, employers will learn the real costs of health care, how to bypass insurance systems and go directly to local health care and medical providers, how to only pay for what is used, and how to quit pre-paying for what they do not use with insurance premiums.
There is no cost for the workshop, and Danzig promises to save employers money after the workshop, if they choose to look at the facts and make sound decisions in accordance with that information.
The workshop will be held at 12 p.m. on July 17 at The Holiday in Olney.
Employers from Olney and all surrounding communities are invited. Attendees may come and go as they please.
Lunch will be provided.
Seating is limited. To reserve a spot, call (800) 280-0010 or (314) 997-8865.
To learn more about ECCHIC, visit www.ecchic.com.
