Multinational employers are increasingly interrogating their vendors to strike a better deal on pricing of health and wellbeing benefits.
This is according to Kelly McCain, director of international expansion at Business Group on Health, who was speaking at Health & Protection’s IPMI Summit at Easthampstead Park Hotel in Wokingham today.
Drawing on her organisation’s survey of 125 employers, 68% of which were multinationals, McCain revealed healthcare costs ranked as their top concern followed by affordability to employees and then to the employer.
Given a hypothetical situation where employers were asked what measures they would implement as a result of rising costs, McCain revealed the first action would be to look at their vendors.
“There is increasing accountability and it’s coming faster and faster on the expectations on vendors to really be a right hand for these multinational employers to be their voice and their eyes and ears in markets where they may not have core operations,” McCain explained.
“If there was absolutely a decision that needed to made contain costs, 30% shared that they would immediately leverage the process to go to market and see if they can get better pricing from their vendors and partners.
“And 20% would end their relationship with vendors that they think is underperforming.”