One of the best things that you can do to help cut your total health care costs is to offer wellness programs to your employees. But this will only help to lower your total health care costs a small percent, as an employer there are other things that you can do to help reduce your total health care costs by as much as 23% per year. And the best part is that most of these ideas are not going to cost you any money at all.

Here are ten things that you can have your employees do to help you cut your total health care costs, but it can also help your employees to save money on health care costs.

Number one:

Maintain a healthy diet. The reason for this is that if you have an unhealthy diet along with unhealthy habits you are going to end up with unnecessary illnesses, meaning preventable illness that will do nothing but increase your health care costs.

Number two:

Check ups and screenings. This is also known as preventive care and it can go a long way in spotting problems before they happen. You want to make sure that you go in for regular checkups from your doctor, dentist, eye doctor, etc so that the problems can be dealt with sooner so that they actually cost less. Also if companies are offering free programs such as flu shots and blood pressure screenings by taking advantage of those you are saving money on doctor visits and can see a doctor sooner if those spot a problem developing.

Number three:

Choose the best health plan; this can only really apply to married couples who have access to more than one health insurance plan. But you want to pick the plan that is going to save you money in the long run. But keep in mind this doesn't just apply to the lower premiums but it also covers what is included in the insurance coverage and what isn't included.

Number four:

Make sure that you stay in the network. Many health care plans offer in network benefits and out of network benefits, the insurance company will pay for both types of benefits but you end up paying more out of pocket if you use a doctor or other facility that is considered out of network. So make sure that whenever possible you use an in network provider or facility.

Number five:

Use a flex spending account. This is money that is taken out of your paycheck before taxes are figured so it is a great tax benefit for you. But it can also help to cover costly medical expenses, such as deductibles for surgery or anything else.

Number six:

Save money on your prescription drugs. If you have numerous prescriptions that you take each month be sure that you shop around to different pharmacies, including online pharmacies and mail order pharmacies, to be sure that you are getting the lowest possible price.

Number seven:

Make sure you look at all medical bills and charges. Sometimes billing errors do occur and it can cost you hundreds of dollars in unnecessary medical costs. If you think there was an error be sure to call billing and ask why this is getting billed the way it is. Many times you can also negotiate medical bills so that you are paying a lower rate if you feel that the charge was too high.

Number eight:

Exercise is another key factor to lowering health care costs. The reason for this is that staying in shape can help you prevent certain chronic diseases. But it can also help you to control your weight. And it has been shown that smoking and obesity, through numerous studies, are the two highest health care costs that employers and employees are facing.

Number nine:

Think about safety. Another high health care cost is accidents that happen to our children and in the workplace that are completely avoidable. By taking the time to think before you do something or even taking a few seconds to put a bike helmet on your child then you can prevent most of these accidents which will lower your health care costs.

Number ten:

Stop smoking. Just like diet and exercise stopping smoking is a great way to reduce your health care costs. It has been shown through numerous studies that smokers get sick more often than non-smokers and children of smokers suffer from more illnesses than children of non-smokers. So because they are sick more often they have more visits to the doctors which ends up costing more in health care costs.

Here are some things that you as an employer can do to cut your total health care costs now.

Number one:

Make sure that you shop around even during the good years. Just because your health insurance premiums only went up by a small percentage that doesn't mean that you should kick back and relax, you still want to make sure that you shop around because if you get too comfortable it can end up costing you more money. Something to keep in mind is that even if your health insurance premiums only goes up a little bit there might be other carriers out there that will give you an even lower rate if you actually shop around or your current carrier might match the rate you have been quoted. For example last year one company received a 7% increase in their insurance premiums and they decided to shop around and received rates back that were 10% lower. So what they did was take those bids back to their current carrier and they reduced the increase to 5% and the company decided to stay with its current carrier. In fact according to the Kaiser report 57% of small business shopped for a new plan last year, 31% switched carriers, and 34% changed health plans.

Number two:

Companies also need to start considering health savings accounts, which were actually introduced in 2004 as part of the major Medicare legislation. Health savings accounts are basically like a 401(k) plan for health care costs. What they do is let employees save money for health care expenses using their pretax dollars. But these plans can only be used on with a qualified health plan that has a high deductible and the most you can put into the account is the amount of deductible each year. Some companies that have already put this type of plan into effect have actually reported a huge reduction in health care costs. These companies have reported as much as 23% savings per year in health care costs.

Number three:

Even though picking the right health insurance plan is very important so is picking the right broker, so you are going to want to choose a broker who is going to work the best for your company. A good broker is going to be somebody who takes the time to get to know your company and understand what your goals are, including both long term and short term financial goals. But they should also be able to suggest ways that you can cut costs on health care costs and keep you up to date with any changes that have been made in the insurance industry, including new laws that have been passed. It has been shown through a recent survey that 80% of benefits managers turn to their brokers first when creating benefits packages for employees and 70% out of that 80% say that what the broker tells them greatly influences their final decision.

Number four:

Make sure that you take a minute to look at the finer points of your plan and if you can see ways that you might help to reduce costs in the long run don't be afraid to make a phone call to see if you can change how the finer points work to help save yourself some money. For example one company that gets almost all of its medical care from local providers noticed that they were paying for networks with doctors and hospitals that were as far away as three hours, which were rarely if ever used. So the owner of the company called the local hospital and asked if they would be willing to join a more limited provider network that was provided with their insurance plan and the hospital agreed. This small change reduced their premium increase from 11% to 6% in one year alone.

Number five:

Make sure that you know who you are covering for health insurance benefits. One problem that many employers face is that they are providing coverage for employee's spouses who are also being covered by their work. So in answer to this, which causes your health care costs to be higher, most companies are only providing coverage for their employees if the spouse is able to get coverage at their job. But another thing you want to consider doing is to expand your probation period so that you are only insuring employees who are going to stick around long term. In fact employers have found that they can save about 3% each year in health costs by extending the probation period from 3 months to 6 months.

Number six:

If you are a small business, under 50 employees, you should consider joining a purchasing pool. Usually what happens is that a group of small businesses get together to buy health insurance and with their combined purchasing power they end up getting offered better rates and access to plans from a larger number of insurance carriers. But even though these pools are on your side you still need to do some basic research before joining a pool. You want to make sure that more than one insurance company participates and that the program actually negotiates over benefits and rates.