Connect older workers with Medicare guidance — The Staffing Stream
Healthcare Staffing Report
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Staffing/recruitment is a growing industry. Between 2014 and 2018, 3.7 million more Americans decided to start freelancing, some of them enlisting staffing agencies to help them find short- or long-term contracts, or part- or full-time jobs. Employers are using them, too: According to a recent North Highland report, 60% of companies expect to hire more contract workers in the next five years.
As for what those contract workers will look like, the reality might surprise you. Alongside millennials and younger generations, baby boomers are still very active participants in today’s workforce. Many are choosing to keep working into their 80s, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that more than one-third of people aged 65-69 will still be working in 2024.
This presents an opportunity for some staffing agencies to stand out from their approximately 20,000 competitors. Good staffing agencies do much more than connect talent with open positions - even job sites can do that. They take advantage of their human ability to communicate with employers and applicants, answer questions and provide additional insight and value in order to save all parties money in the long term.
Why Take Note of Medicare
A great area for additional support to job seekers age 65 and older exists: Provide easy access to Medicare guidance. Medicare is a complicated federal benefit that workers have been paying for the entirety of their working careers, and it has multiple parts and plans, as well as penalties when people miss key requirements. Generally, there’s a limited window of time during which individuals can sign up for Medicare, and if job seekers miss their initial enrollment window, it could wind up costing them in the form of coverage gaps and penalties.
Why should staffing companies concern themselves with this area of healthcare? Job seekers are highly concerned about benefits - and Medicare may be one of the most misunderstood and valuable benefit available to older workers. But this doesn’t mean staffing firms must become experts on Medicare. Rather, they can provide access to Medicare experts in a way that sets their job-placement assistance apart, with both the workers and employers they serve.
Acquisition talent is a competitive market these days, and benefits can be a key to job seekers’ choices about where and who to work with given the rising costs of healthcare and increasing cost-sharing shouldered by workers. In some cases, Medicare may be more affordable than coverage provided by a potential employer: Medicare premiums can be as low as $135.50; deductibles less than $200; and out-of-pocket costs lower or altogether eliminated. Care quality also may be better on a Medicare plan than an employer plan: Medicare networks are larger,with 93% of primary care physicians accepting Medicare. Older workers may not realize the advantages of Medicare compared with coverage they may have had under an employer plan or Marketplace plan. Note: Medicare-eligible individuals on a Marketplace plan must make the transition to Medicare, though this switch isn’t made automatically.
Don’t Overlook a Valuable Advantage
Knowing this information can be helpful in conversations with older job seekers, as well as when talking with employers interested in hiring older workers. Employers today spend almost $7,000 on single-coverage healthcare premiums, and if they contract with older workers enrolled in Medicare, that’s a substantial investment they don’t have to think about. But the ability to connect workers and employers with expert Medicare assistance, to guide them through the process of using this important healthcare coverage, is even more valuable.
Fortunately, staffing agencies don’t have to spend too much time thinking about Medicare. There are Medicare experts out there that are capable of working with job seekers to help them learn about it, select the right plan and enroll at the appropriate time.
The more wisdom and guidance agencies can share with gig workers, the more likely those workers will be to select them. And the more talent that agencies have access to, the more they’ll have to offer the employers they work with. So, without having to know each and every Medicare detail, all staffing agencies have to do to be a step above the rest is enlist help from an experienced Medicare advisor.