Introduction - Health Savings Accounts & HSA Adoption

INTRODUCTION: HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS & HSA ADOPTION

In Steven Covey’s “The Habits of Highly Effective People,” habit one, “Be Proactive,” is defined as “Focus and act on what you can control and influence, instead of what you can’t.” Habit two is “Begin with the End in Mind,” with the description “Define clear measures of success and a plan to achieve them.”

When you bear these two habits in mind, you set the stage for a successful Health Savings Account (HSA) adoption strategy. (We would also advise following the remaining five, but our focus will be on the first two).

WHY HSAs?

Many consumer-directed plans are available, but HSAs are uniquely positioned to provide participants with long-term and short-term savings options.

Our goal in this eBook is to help you identify what you can control and use that to design a plan backed by practical best practices. We cover that in Section 1 before moving on to holistic contribution models in Section 2 and finally addressing messaging strategies to effectively engage employees in Section 3.

Let’s start by looking at habit one: What you can control.

WHAT CAN YOU CONTROL?

Any number of items could be listed here. However, we’ve chosen the three below because they are practical, attainable, and necessary for your HSA adoption strategy.

• Attract and retain talent

• Merge health and wealth

• Ensure employee retirement readiness

Now that we’ve identified what you can control, let’s briefly touch on the first part of habit two: defining clear measures of success. (We’ll come back to the second part at the end of this eBook).

Your measure of success will most likely tie to how many employees enroll in your health savings plan. You have latitude with how to approach this.

Regardless of if you go wide (“We want to boost adoption from last year”) or narrow (“We want to boost adoption by 5% from last year’s numbers”), you will need a plan to achieve your goal.