Cost-Containment

As the year progresses, expect an increasing number of employers and benefits consultants to build value-based networks designed to improve health outcomes while reducing costs - and alternative care delivery sites will expand.

Benefits advisors and brokers need to understand price transparency from the participant and provider perspectives, the compliance mandates new federal regulations aim to achieve, and most importantly, what strategies benefits professionals can take to optimize their role and value.

Also, level funding is a midway approach for employers ready to move away from a fully insured plan while keeping the consistency and predictability that came with it.

Eli Lilly's announcement that it is capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month also casts light on pharmacy benefit managers at a time when Congress has shifted its focus on them.

Health insurance has become so expensive and complicated, most employers leave everything to the big insurance companies, who then take advantage of their ignorance and their desire to stay that way. But it's possible to take the power back.

Renewal of the state's contract to procure specialty pharmacy prescriptions, which was set to take effect May 1, was halted after the pharmacy chain announced its refusal to sell mifepristone in 20 states.