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Guest Blog by Elizabeth Hughes, ThrivePass
In today’s competitive HR outsourcer landscape, differentiation goes far beyond offering standard benefits. Savvy PrismHR customers are evolving their strategy—focusing on engagement, cost control and innovative solutions that deliver measurable value to both employers and employees.
By combining smart plan design, intuitive technology and proactive partnership, HROs can improve outcomes while unlocking new growth opportunities.
Sustainable engagement starts with intentional design. Pretax solutions create built-in financial incentives for employees, which helps increase enrollment year over year rather than relying on a one-time spike during open enrollment. When benefits are both valuable and easy to use, participation naturally grows—strengthening the overall impact of your offering.
A Conversation About Communication
Communication is one of the biggest drivers of success in benefits adoption. Leading HROs are leveraging prebuilt campaigns, collateral and enrollment playbooks—included as part of the partnership—to:
- Simplify complex decisions.
- Improve enrollment rates.
- Sustain engagement year-round.
All of this leads to greater Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) savings for you and/or your clients.
A modern benefits strategy requires a consumer-grade experience that includes natural guidance and education leading up to key decisions, all while factoring in personalization among a simplified experience. A strong user experience (UX) doesn’t just improve usability—it directly drives higher engagement and better outcomes resulting in retention and increased tax savings for both the employee and employer/HRO.
COBRA is often treated as a fixed administrative requirement—but forward-thinking HROs are re-evaluating its role in overall cost strategy. By approaching the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act holistically, HROs can reduce unnecessary spending via administrative fees, operational processes and even medical claims costs.
Keeping COBRA at Bay
Offering COBRA for qualified groups is required under federal labor laws. However, it doesn’t have to be a checkbox and added expense.
A key innovation in this space is the ability to educate members prior to and during their COBRA decision-making process. That can include providing a side-by-side plan comparison between COBRA and comparable marketplace plans.
However, we’re seeing top-performing HROs take it a step further by providing proactive enrollment guidance: education and access to decision-support tools included in the termination process (or other Qualifying Life Event [QLE]), additional outreach to the member during the time COBRA enrollment is pending and additional communications directing those who elected COBRA to access decision-support tools ahead of open enrollment (Nov. 1–Jan. 15).
Leading HROs have successfully educated hundreds of members per year to truly understand their options leading to a significant decrease in members defaulting to COBRA—even to the extent of leveraging the delta in renewal conversations with carriers.
Better Tools, Better Decisions
When employees are empowered with the right tools and information, they make better decisions—benefiting everyone involved. It’s critical to have a partner that not only offers these solutions but also drives execution, which leads to actual results.
While proper setup of pretax plans can result in increased revenue and a holistic COBRA solution can result in cost savings, leading HROs equip themselves with a third lever—an entirely new source of revenue.
Offering additional benefits such as Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSAs) enables you to differentiate your HRO. LSAs have evolved to become far more than funds to cover gym memberships.
LSAs eliminate the manual processes of post-tax reimbursements altogether, such as work-from-home supplies, industry-specific equipment, work-travel expenses, financial wellness and more. The best LSA solutions allow you to save your clients time and money that they could be spending on things more important than internal administration.
With go-to-market support by your benefits partner, we’ve seen a fast LSA adoption rate, which leads to higher retention and engagement among worksite employees.
Finding a Partner
The right partner delivers more than a platform—they provide alignment, expertise and ongoing support, including go-to-market content, playbooks and accountability for reporting results. Ensure you’re unlocking your full potential by choosing a quality benefits partner that has dedicated sales and go-to-market support, continuous product enhancements, customized service models and proven success with other HRO partners.
The future of your success lies in delivering smarter, more engaging and more cost-effective benefits solutions by focusing on: pretax benefit optimization, strategic communication, intuitive digital experiences, a modern COBRA solution and innovative offerings like LSAs.
Transform your benefits strategy into a powerful engine for growth.
Learn more about ThrivePass.
Vice President of Partnerships
ThrivePass
Elizabeth Hughes leads the Partnerships Team at ThrivePass, a technology-first administrator for Pre-tax, COBRA and Lifestyle Spending Accounts. Elizabeth’s team collaborates with and supports Partners such as PrismHR, health plans, wellness solution providers and PEOs. Elizabeth is a New England native and graduate of Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Elizabeth had worked with the current CEO of ThrivePass, Ryan Tacke, who asked her to lead the Partnerships Team in 2022. Elizabeth and her team have shaped their solution for PEOs and continue to evolve their technology based on the specific needs of PEOs to offer modern benefit solutions. Elizabeth is passionate about ensuring her partners have the right technology to help members access their healthcare benefits.
