By Evan Falchuk

Want to know why big health reform plans are going badly?

Not enough attention is being paid to people doing real, meaningful things to improve the cost and quality of health care.

In my series “Real People Real Reform,” I share some of these stories.

This time, I speak with Rick George, Director of Benefits for J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. If you live in North America, you’ve almost certainly seen their yellow logo on a truck on a highway near you.

But J.B. Hunt is more than just trucks.  They are a recognized leader in transportation logistics.  And they’re bringing that same level of insight and attention to their health care programs.

Rick, what is J.B. Hunt’s philosophy in terms of employee benefits?

Basically, our philosophy is making sure that we provide the best possible benefits for our employees and their families. Benefit packages have to be cost effective for both the employee and our company, but more importantly they need to address the wide scope of needs that our employees have. We make a concerted effort to customize programs and ensure that our employees have the most adequate coverage we can provide. There’s not one plan or solution that does it all. For example, we have our own call center to address our employee’s questions and concerns. We believe that having an internal call center is the best to hear our employees’ concerns on a daily basis so we can help take care of our employee and their family’s needs in a very time effective manner.

Are health care costs a problem for JB Hunt, and what do you do about it?

Healthcare costs are an issue because of the constant inflation around healthcare.  But our unique challenges come from the nature of our employee base.  We have drivers who are on the road for days at a time with tough schedules, which can lead to unhealthy eating habits and a lack of exercise. We wanted to put in place a robust health and wellness program, but realized that with our work force, you had to tailor it very specifically.  We have health coaches that work with our employees via the phone to give them information on living a healthier lifestyle no matter where their job takes them or what they do. For drivers, we even developed an exercise program that they can do while on the road. You have to be very creative with this.  We wanted to address so many different areas, like smoking, diabetes management, cholesterol, blood pressure, and others.  The health coaches work with our employees – no matter what their challenges are – and help them get to where they have a healthier lifestyle.

Keeping our employees health is the most important thing, so we try and do as much as we can to get employees involved in our health and wellness programs. The real challenge is time — giving employees the time to engage with these programs. We do a lot of things from health coaching, to employee sessions to having healthy vending machine options. We make sure that our on site food vendors offer low fat options.

We feel like beyond lifestyle our employees need tools to help them make informed medical decisions. That’s why we brought Best Doctors on board. Our employees are getting care and treatment recommendations based on their unique health issue and will get the right care the first time around. There are no repeats.

Are there common concerns you hear from employees around their experience with the health care system?

One of the major concerns that we hear from employees is about the inconsistencies at the point of sale, at the doctor’s office. When they go to an in-network doctor, they need to submit a claim. We get complaints of doctors wanting payment in full instead of filing with the person’s insurance carrier first. This can create challenges for those who have an HSA account Also the paper system we have in place now creates a lot of problems. Having secure electronic health records would help as long as all physicians could access the complete picture of our health history.

Healthcare is such an unknown and a foreign animal. It’s unlike buying a TV where you know the features you’re looking for. With a TV, you know what you should roughly pay. You know what type of brand you want to buy. With healthcare you depend solely on what your doctor tells you, and you hope the doctor has told you everything you should know and what you should do. But this isn’t always the case, so having a service like Best Doctors helps.

How do you manage change in benefits plans?  Is it ever easy?

When things change (co-pays for example), employees are concerned. They don’t want complexities or complications. If there are, you might get push back at first but like anything else, it eventually becomes the norm. For example, we changed over from brand name drugs to mandatory generics. One one level, this wasn’t a big move, but it was a change that was big in the eyes of the employees because they were used to getting name brands. Eventually, employees realized that they could get the same result with the generic drugs while saving money.

What lessons can others learn from your experience?

One thing is something that resonates with our employees. Most of us know that every 3-5 thousand miles our cars need an oil change, After wear and tear, the tires on your car will show signs that it’s time to get new ones. When it comes to your personal healthcare, there are signs that will help you with your own care. Know your numbers — blood pressure, cholesterol, weight. These types of signs will explain where you are and where you need to be. That’s something we try and drive home with each or our employees and it used as a base level for the types of programs we implement on their behalf.