Let's be real:  If we're talking co-worker benefits, we're really talking Health Insurance. Most other benefits—Vacation, Sick/Personal Days, Holidays, Company Store/Discounts and other elements of the standard package are mostly on auto-pilot. Even merit and COLA increases are very structured. But Health Insurance—there's a big-ticket item. So much so, it is largely responsible for cannibalizing the merit and COLA benefits of late. Retirement benefits (employer-sponsored and partially-funded IRA's, 401-k's as well as HSA's) are even under threat from the voracious appetites of Health Insurers' premium bills. 

Problem:  You once had some bargaining power and some flexibility to structure a menu of Health Insurance benefits and you could even use this feature to compete and differentiate your company from competitors and from other industries where your hiring managers' prospects might look for opportunities. Once had, because the offerings have become largely mandated by minimum-defined-benefit plans (think ACA), and by the monstrous monthly premium inflation that has watered down your company's ability to extend the perk of employer-subsidized enrollment.

Where the plans have become one-size-fits-all, and the availbility of insurers looks like a take-it-or-leave-it monopoly, there's little flexibility left for you to provide your constituents real value; forget menus and choices. They pay their co-pays, and then they get billed very uncomfortable out-of-pocket amounts like $1,050.00 for a scheduled CT-Scan, $240.00 a pop for P/T visits, and other window envelopes you'll certainly hear some choice words over. 'Deductible' has become the dreaded fineprint. Funny, it doesn't look like a four-letter-word.

Solution:  Maybe the way to put you AND your charges back in the driver's seat is through fostering, within your organization, Healthcare Price Transparency. You can't do anything about annual deductibles per insured. But you can help your co-workers to know in advance that 'Brand X' charges a Grand for a scheduled MRI, but 'Brand Y' is a highly-rated alternative, is right in your area, and costs much less at about $450-500.00 for the EXACT SAME PROCEDURE.

(Pro-Tip:  Don't let them be sent to the hospital's MRI machine, CT-Scanner, or Covid-Testing Lab!!!)

DOC$ is all about providing a One-Stop-Shopping guide to Healthcare costs and Medical Price Transparency. But to build this great resource, we need input on a very large scale—from insured, HSA, and uninsured individuals. We need YOUR troops to share their own purchase experiences:  What they bought (Procedure, Description), from which Provider (Doctor, Hospital, Surgery Center, P/T Clinic, Medical Imaging Center, etc.) and how much they were charged/paid after insurance discount applied. That's all that is needed, and users can register with a UserName that keeps them TOTALLY ANONYMOUS if desired.

We'd like to hear any and all feedback from you, as an HR/Benefits professional:

*  Does DOC$ sound to you like a potentially valuble benefits enhancement tool?

*  What pros and cons do you see to recommending DOC$ to your co-workers?

*  What can we do to help you and to otherwise stimulate use of DOC$?

*  How can we make DOC$ better (other than of course, millions more rows of user data!)?

Below you will see a short video that gives a glimpse into our mission and how DOC$ is designed to work. Thanks for the time, and we hope to hear your input.