The Benefits Questions to Ask Before Your Next Renewal

Your benefits renewal is one of the few moments each year when you have real leverage with your broker and carrier. Most organizations spend it on premiums and deductibles. Very few ask a single question about menopause care.

Your employees have noticed. In Bank of America’s 2023 survey with the National Menopause Foundation, 64% of women said they wanted menopause-specific benefits. Only 14% believed their employer recognized the need. That’s a 50-point gap between what your people want and what they think you see.

Covered on paper isn’t the same as covered

Most health plans technically cover a visit for menopause symptoms. That’s usually where the review stops, and it’s the wrong place to stop.

The gaps tend to sit underneath:

• She can’t find an in-network clinician with menopause training, so she sees someone who tells her it’s stress.
• She doesn’t know what’s covered, so she pays out of pocket or gives up.
• The support exists, but the information never reaches the nurse on nights or the associate on the floor.

The result is the same as having no benefit. She muddles through, her work suffers, and you pay for it in absence, lost focus and eventually turnover.

Three questions to start with

You don’t need to redesign your plan this cycle. But I’d put at least these three to your broker and carrier, and ask for the answers in writing:

1. How does an employee find a clinician with menopause training in our network? If the answer is “search the directory,” ask how the directory identifies that training. Often it doesn’t.

2. Are the treatments those clinicians prescribe covered, and at what cost to the employee? A covered visit means little if the prescription sits on a high cost-share tier.

3. What did our members use last year, in aggregate? You can’t evaluate a benefit without utilization data.

Those three tell you whether you have a benefit or a line item. A full benefits review goes further, into treatment coverage, telehealth, your EAP, how information reaches hourly and frontline staff, and who owns this inside your organization.

Treat it like a retention decision

You’d scrutinize any benefit that touched a fifth of your workforce. In the US, about 1 in 5 people in the workforce are in some stage of the menopause transition. Many of them are your most experienced managers, clinicians and client leads.

That makes this a retention question as much as a benefits question. So before you sign the renewal, ask your own team one thing: if one of our senior women went looking for menopause care through our plan tomorrow, would she find it?

If nobody in the room is sure, find out before you sign.

Build a Menopause-Ready Workplace

If you want to know what this is costing your organization, let’s look at your numbers together. In 30 minutes we’ll talk through your workforce, where you’re exposed and what your first 90 days could look like. Schedule a 30-minute call →

Already know what you need? Skip the call and book it →

Sources

1. Bank of America with the National Menopause Foundation, Break Through the Stigma: Menopause in the Workplace (2023).

This article provides general information. It is not legal, HR, benefits, or medical advice.