ALEX Reports Emplyee Onboarding 1

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1 ALEX Reports Emplyee Onboarding 1

2 The Story This a story of how Adobe Systems, a computer software company, enrolled 62% of its employees in a new high deductible health plan with an HSA, and reduced its 2018 Affordable Care Act excise tax liability by more than $4.7 million. $ 4.7 MILLION Reduction in Tax Liability The Background Moving to consumer-directed health plans had been part of the Adobe strategy for years. It offered an HDHP with an HRA prior to benefits year 2014, and knew it would be including HSA plans as part of its future offerings at some point. Then came the Affordable Care Act. Because of the way its PPO plans were structured, Adobe realized it faced a tax liability of $5 million in 2018 alone. Over a four-year period, that was going to compound to some $50 million. Something had to be done. The external environment accelerated the direction we were going in with the HSA plans. It was very apparent to us that our PPO plan needed to go away, and that we needed to somehow migrate people out of that plan. Rosemary Ariada-Keiper ALEX The Adobe Systems Case Study 1

3 A Very Challenging Road The Adobe benefits team s goal of moving as many of its 6,000 US-based employees to a new HSA plan presented a number of different perils. CHALLENGE #1: Avoiding Full-Replacement Adobe was never in a position to tell employees, This is your one and only plan. Its company culture values having choices, and its employees don t like to be limited in terms of their options. If we said, Your plans are going away and you need to move now, the reaction we would have gotten from employees would have been bad. For years we ve been trying to get employees out of the PPO with cost increases to no avail. CHALLENGE #2: All-Carrot-No-Stick Motivation Adobe couldn t rely on plan design changes alone to achieve its migration goals. Its highly compensated workforce just isn t as sensitive to increases in premiums or out-of-pocket costs as employees with lower streams of income. CHALLENGE #3: A Bad Case of the I-Don t-wannas Like many companies, Adobe has its share of employees who just don t want to give up their traditional plans. Even when faced with math that clearly shows how one plan is better than the other, these employees are reluctant to make a change. When I ask, Why would you stay in this more expensive plan? they tell me, I don t want to bother with dealing with an account. I just don t want to do it. ALEX The Adobe Systems Case Study 2

4 The Communication Plan Although Adobe adjusted the designs of medical plans to make the HSA the most appealing option, it worked hard to create a sophisticated communication plan that provided employees with multiple ways of getting information. Website Adobe built a handsome, well-designed benefits website, and made it available outside of its corporate firewall so it could be accessed from anywhere. benefits.adobe.com Video Several videos are available to provide detailed explanations of how Adobe s benefit plans and offerings work. Price Transparency Tool Adobe employees have access to an online price transparency tool that helps define provider cost and quality based on plan details and geographic areas. Call Center Adobe contracted a third-party call center provider that can handle both telephone and inquiries. Virtual Benefits Counselor Although the Adobe benefits team carefully designed its HSA plan to be the best option, it knew employees would need the kind of guidance and decision support that only ALEX provides. Video is not interactive. We use video to take the place of benefits people standing up and doing presentations. Video can get into nitty-gritty details, but it can t guide employees through a difficult decision. That s what ALEX is for. The Results Sixty-two percent enrollment in a brand-new HSA? Those kind of results speak for themselves. 98 % 91 % Because so many employees left our PPO plans and migrated over to the HSA, our 2018 The amount of surveyed visitors who found the medical insurance module to be Extremely, Very, or Somewhat helpful. When asked, Do you feel like you have a better understanding of how your medical benefits work now? 91% of employees responded with Yes, definitely, or Yes, a little. tax liability when from $5 million to $300,000. It s amazing. And we still have until 2018 to keep impacting that plan. ALEX The Adobe Systems Case Study 3

5 Adobe Employees Rave About the ALEX Experience At the end of the experience, ALEX offers a few survey questions, one of which allows for open-ended feedback. Here are a few of the things Adobe employees had to say: $ ALEX helps save money I think I just saved myself a couple thousand dollars. This was amazing. THANK YOU SO MUCH :) ALEX made plan selection fast and easy Thank You! We figured out our plan in 15 minutes, and ALEX took the intimidation of the process out of the way! ALEX s was fun to use and a looker besides This was amazing! Loved it. Loved the graphics. ALEX s voice is perfect in all ways. Loved the humor. It was the right amount. Really well done! Some were interested in ALEX s backend technology This was awesome thanks for investing in this tool. I hope you are using an Adobe software solution for this! :) ALEX prevented the need to make a phone call This is great. I was going to call the benefits team today to find out about the plans and how they work, but now I don t need to. This explains it better than anyone over the phone ever could with answering my questions. Thanks! ALEX made sense of the HDHP Please keep this service! This was extremely helpful, and made me comfortable with the changes. I m on the PPO and decided to switch to the HDHP after seeing the information presented here. Very easy to understand. Nice job! ALEX was a breath of fresh air You are so natural. Thank you for not being a stuffy corporate gobbledygook presentation! Talking to ALEX is fun and easy employees don t have to dig out their historical information in order to determine their best plan option. For more information, visit or call Josh Fosburg at ALEX The Adobe Systems Case Study 4