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COMMUNICATION + TRANSPARENCY
We need more direct engagement with covered freelancers and staff as to what is most important to us for our coverage. In all of my years participating in PHBP, I don't ever recall getting any sort of polls or surveys from the Board asking us - the membership - what we prioritize in our healthcare to help inform them in making their decisions for our benefits each year. If the Covered Employee Trustees are representing us - the membership - then I want to see more communication from those Trustees so that they are truly working as liaisons bringing our voices to the table.

EXPANSION + EQUITABILITY
With the cost of insurance and healthcare continuing to soar, we should grow the total number of eligible covered employees to invite more participation in PHBP. Larger membership numbers translate to more leverage with insurers for preferred pricing, which gets us higher quality coverage at a lower cost per employee. We can increase contributions paying into PHBP by expanding coverage to other short-form content produced by participating AICP companies such as music videos.

We also need to work on an equitable solution to help employees who live and work outside the major production centers to qualify for benefits and maintain that eligibility each year. Perhaps there could be a very basic plan option that they could attain with fewer days worked/earnings or perhaps they could have the option to pay out of pocket to help offset. There are too many of our colleagues who are missing out on eligibility by a small margin and our Board is comprised of problem solvers who should be able to close that gap. 

MODERNIZATION
Why don’t we have e-billing yet? It’s something that should have been implemented years ago. Only recently in the past few years have credit card payments been available to us, however, that portal/user interface is lackluster to say the least.

Some quick math to my point… approximately 1,800 covered freelancers and 950 staff equals 2,750 accounts. Annual mailings include 12x monthly statements, 12x separate voluntary benefits statements, 1x invoice for $300 annual fee, 1x annual eligibility mailing… that’s 14x mailings per year to 2,750 accounts/employees. At the standard $0.78 per first-class stamp, those 38,500 envelopes mailed out cost $30,030 per year. $150k over five years. It feels financially wasteful and certainly not eco-friendly.

Surely, we could do better and save some PHBP operational expenses.