{"id":3805,"date":"2025-07-08T15:53:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3805"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:53:44","slug":"what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\/","title":{"rendered":"What HR Departments Should Be Doing about Healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

As dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system grows, the responsibility to ensure that workers are getting services falls to employers by default.<\/p>\n

Ensuring that healthcare insurers and third-party administrators (TPAs) are delivering what they\u2019ve promised and aren\u2019t denying doctor-recommended procedures shouldn\u2019t require hiring anyone new; it should be a core element of the responsibilities of the human resources (HR) department, according to Academy of Management Scholar Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University<\/a>. He said HR personnel should be able to fulfill this important duty without it becoming an onerous task.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t actually think that\u2019s too much to ask, doing a survey of your employees and collecting data from your benefits administrator to find out what percentage of claims are denied, how much coverage costs, how much prior authorization there is, all this stuff,\u201d Pfeffer said. \u201cI don\u2019t think this requires advanced analytical skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis requires a relatively simple employee survey and then holding people at health insurers and TPAs accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As an example of what\u2019s possible, Pfeffer cited the example of Marilyn Bartlett, a CPA and former insurance executive who negotiated with health insurers, TPAs, and hospitals on behalf of Montana\u2019s employee healthcare plan, proving that bargaining to reduce healthcare prices can work well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very smart woman who had worked for years for a health-benefits company, but you do not need enormous amounts of expertise to hold benefits administrators accountable,\u201d Pfeffer said. \u201cYou would just need to define what some standards are: How much time should people be waiting on hold? What percentage of claims have been denied? How many claims should be denied? How much prior authorization should we do? Are we following the recommendations of the American Medical Association?<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk yourself, \u2018Are we doing this benefits administration oversight in any in an efficient and effective manner, as you would measure anything else?\u2019 and the answer to that is, in almost every case, \u2018No,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cSpecialization for this role may be necessary, but I don\u2019t actually think so\u2014this is pretty straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher As dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system grows, the responsibility to ensure that workers are getting services falls to employers by default. Ensuring that healthcare insurers and third-party administrators (TPAs) are delivering what they\u2019ve promised and aren\u2019t denying doctor-recommended procedures shouldn\u2019t require hiring anyone new; it should be a core element of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,74,78,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c-suite","category-hr","category-policy","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat HR Departments Should Be Doing about Healthcare - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"What HR Departments Should Be Doing about Healthcare\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:53:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":360,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/nurse-wearing-ppe.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"C-SUITE\",\"HR\",\"POLICY\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/what-hr-departments-should-be-doing-about-healthcare\\\/\",\"name\":\"What HR Departments Should Be Doing about Healthcare - 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Ensuring that healthcare insurers and third-party administrators (TPAs) are delivering what they\u2019ve promised and aren\u2019t denying doctor-recommended procedures shouldn\u2019t require hiring anyone new; it should be a core element of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3805"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3805"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}