How to effectively communicate ICHRA benefits to your employees

Effective communication is key to boosting employee enrollment in Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRA). Tailoring your strategy to different employee demographics ensures everyone—from Millennials to Baby Boomers—understands how ICHRA can meet their unique needs, helping them make informed decisions about their healthcare.

Communication must address common concerns during enrollment, aiming to educate employees on their options regardless of age or employment status. While you’ll create an overarching communication strategy, it’s worth considering different segments to target different employees to boost overall enrollment.  

Millennials & Gen Z employees

For younger employees, remember that this may be their first time receiving healthcare coverage from an employer. That could mean discussing health insurance at a higher level, including providing a glossary of commonly used healthcare terms they might not be familiar with yet. 

The messaging should focus on the flexibility and autonomy ICHRA can provide younger employees. ICHRA can fit into their lifestyle and budget unlike a traditional group health insurance plan. 

Explain how ICHRA allows for individual choice in selecting coverage. For example, six out of 10 millennials prefer telemedicine alternatives, including video appointments and chats, to traditional in-office visits. With ICHRA, employees can choose coverage that includes free telehealth. 

Resources for Gen Z and Millennials

• A healthcare primer. A multipage glossary can help younger employees get familiar with some healthcare jargon they’ll encounter during enrollment. Giving employees the tools to understand coverage at a basic level can empower them through the enrollment process. 

• Digital tools. To help these digital natives understand the benefits of ICHRA, they should focus on communication via online tools. Consider an internal email campaign, video explainers, or a series of short webinars that walk employees through the benefits. 

• Access. While in-person meetings or webinars can be great tools for answering questions, consider creating communications that can be accessed 24/7. These on-demand resources will be useful when an employee needs an answer quickly.    

Gen X employees

Gen Xers will likely appreciate the benefits above, but it’s important to communicate how ICHRA can benefit their financial goals and medical needs.

Because employees get to pick their coverage under ICHRA, it can help employees budget better. For Gen X employees, ICHRA could help keep costs down when searching for family health coverage. 

Additionally, communicate that the reimbursements employees receive from their employer through an ICHRA are not considered taxable income. This means that employees' money for qualifying health expenses (such as premiums for individual health insurance plans or other medical expenses) is exempt from federal income tax.

This creates an immediate financial advantage, as employees can use the reimbursed funds to offset their healthcare costs without being taxed on the reimbursement amount.

Include the financial benefits of ICHRA, which can help speak directly to Gen X. 

Resources for Gen X employees

• HR office hours. Consider creating digital or in-person office hours with the HR or benefits manager. Employees can ask management questions about their ICHRA benefits during these sessions one-on-one.  

• Empower leadership. The average CEO is 54 years old, which reminds us that office leadership is transitioning towards Gen X. As a benefits manager, it’s important to remember that Gen X employees are leaders in the office. Ensuring they understand ICHRA benefits could empower them to advise and educate less senior employees. 

Baby Boomers

ICHRA's flexibility can benefit Baby Boomers or employees closer to retirement age. Focus on how ICHRA allows for continued coverage after transitioning from employer-sponsored plans. Since it’s an individual plan, not a group plan, employees can take their coverage with them when they go.

Resources for Baby Boomer employees

• Introduce them to ICHRAs, a relatively new innovation in the healthcare space. While Baby Boomers have probably taken advantage of Group Insurance coverage through their employers before, ICHRAs and finding coverage in the marketplace may be new experiences for them. 

• Start with seminars. In addition to digital tools and private office hours, consider a series of in-person or online seminars around open enrollment and ICHRA benefits. 

Remote or gig workers

Since ICHRAs make it possible to divide employees by class based on criteria like hours worked and location, it’s also important to speak to this employee demographic. 

For remote, part-time, or gig employees, speak to the portability of ICHRAs. This might appeal particularly to remote employees who are not tied to a physical office. ICHRAs allow them to choose a plan that works for them, which might mean a plan with more local coverage. 

Resources for remote or part-time employees

• Flexible resources. For remote or part-time employees, provide flexible resources, such as recorded webinars or pamphlets accessible around the clock, not just when an HR professional is online. 

• FAQs and walk-throughs. If you notice the same questions coming up in one-on-one sessions and seminars, consider compiling them into a living FAQ document or recorded presentation.

Additional considerations to keep in mind

• Language barriers. Is a language barrier keeping employees from understanding healthcare communications? Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the U.S. When writing or designing ICHRA benefit materials, consider making Spanish-language versions to better communicate with bi-lingual employees.   

• Accessibility. If your healthcare communication strategy relies more on pre-recorded materials, consider offering subtitles in videos and seminars for employees who are hard of hearing or have auditory processing challenges. 

• Varied messaging. No single communication will speak to an entire workforce. An effective communications plan will switch up the mode of messaging and the messenger. Consider contacting third parties who help run your benefits program to collaborate on seminars or office hours. 

Strategies for clear and effective communication

Certain talking points will speak to different employee demographics. But, even the best assets will be useless without a clearly defined healthcare communication strategy. 

• Provide comprehensive education upfront. With an appropriate enrollment timeline in place, there should be plenty of time to create educational resources, including webinars, fact sheets, and one-pagers.

• Speak to all employees. Avoid jargon-heavy communications and break down topics so employees can better understand the concepts. 

• Multichannel communication. Offer various educational resources (one-pagers, meetings, and video) across varied platforms (online, in-person, in print).

• Include a point of contact. In communications about ICHRA benefits, consistently offer a contact to whom employees can contact with specific questions. This point of contact could be the company HR representative or benefits consultant.

• Use case studies and real-world examples. When explaining tax advantages and reimbursements, use clear examples to demonstrate savings and benefits for employees. Break down the concepts into real-world examples to showcase the advantages of ICHRA. 

Maximizing participation in the ICHRA program

Personalizing communications will go a long way in maximizing ICHRA participation in the workplace. As your team develops a healthcare communications strategy for ICHRA, keep the following in mind.

• Promote awareness. Run a communication campaign before the open enrollment period to ensure employees know about ICHRA and how to participate. If possible, include stories or testimonials from employees who have successfully enrolled in ICHRA, showcasing its value and ease of use.

• Simplify enrollment. Make the enrollment process as straightforward as possible. Consider pre-filling information for employees where possible. Offer easy-to-follow instructions and provide ongoing support throughout the enrollment period.

• Ongoing communication and support, post-enrollment. Communications should continue even after the enrollment period. Make yourself available to address issues, answer questions, and ensure employees get the most out of the program. Provide ongoing reminders and updates about ICHRA eligibility and available resources.

The takeaway

There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to introducing ICHRA to employees. Creating different assets, hosting different events, and utilizing different communication styles will help create clear, targeted communication that speaks to the many different demographics of your workplace. 

Feeling overwhelmed by healthcare communications? Thatch is here to help. We’re simplifying the management of ICHRAs using an all-in-one platform personalized for each employee. 

Let Thatch manage employee coverage so you can focus on connecting with your team.