How to Get Ahead of the Priciest Health-Care Expense — Cancer Care

This excerpt was originally published in CFO Magazine. You can read the whole article here.

Employer healthcare costs are expected to rise by an average of 6.4 percent this year. This marks the next milestone in a steady upward trend for employers’ annual healthcare coverage spending. As costs continue to climb year-over-year, it’s crucial that CFOs develop business strategies for long-term healthcare savings, including ways to leverage their 2025 health plan design process to proactively address areas of concern. How can business leaders better understand their specific cost drivers and intercept issues before they affect their bottom lines?

For most companies, cancer is the costliest piece of their healthcare puzzle. It’s the best place for CFOs to start.

Healthcare cost inflation has always been a multiple of general inflation. Both metrics, as we know, continue to rise. Some employers are already dealing with double-digit jumps in healthcare coverage costs, numbers we haven’t seen in decades. Most of this generation’s CFOs, HR leaders, and benefits managers have never experienced healthcare rates this high and are troubled by mid-year healthcare costs that run far above their expected budgets. But why are employer healthcare costs suddenly soaring higher than ever before?

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