The 2023 Benefits Canada Healthcare survey has been released and the information is something worth reading. Half of plan members reported that the coverage they had limited their ability to seek out treatment. 84 per cent of those said that they had a major injury in the past year and weren’t able to treat it properly.
In this article, we’ll go through the survey findings and discuss how you can improve your company’s benefits for 2024.
Where coverage fell short.
Heavy users of their benefits plan (11 or more times a year) said that maxing out coverage curtailed treatment plans. This went mainly for mental health services at 82 per cent. After that it was massage therapy (82 per cent), physio (78 per cent) and chiropractic care (75 per cent).
They cited that dental services and prescription drugs were also included within those seven categories.
How much are people paying out of pocket?
There are many benefits packages that only cover a certain amount of service costs. The 2023 survey found that on average people spent $3,515 out of pocket this year on the services discussed above. They also spent the most on mental health services, coming in at $1,739.
What does this data mean?
Having this data is very helpful for insurance lenders, benefits advisors and workplace managers. Members of the survey’s advisory board suggested after reading the finding that new reporting on the percentage of plan members reaching the maximum of their coverage would be useful to help guide decisions for the future of certain coverage plans.
The positives from the survey.
But it wasn’t all about coverage falling short in 2023. Plan members (72 per cent) said that they appreciate their benefits plan more now than they did before the pandemic. Only 18 per cent would describe their mental health state as “poor”, compared to 22 per cent last year.
Similarly, for the past two years, 77 per cent of people said that their plan’s overall quality is excellent or good. This is up from 68 per cent in 2021 and 2020.
Takeaways from the survey.
If this survey brought up some questions about your benefits package, give us a call today. We can discuss where your plan may be falling short and what we could do to improve it in 2024.
Does your plan offer mental health services? How much is allocated to that service? Are workers maxing out their spending or not using it at all? Spend some time thinking about what your employees need, we’ll review how your package is working and then create a plan that works for everyone.
