Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement - A30

30 | SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
O U R I S M A N A U T O M O T I V E G R O U P, M A R L O W H E I G H T S , M D .

PLAN CUTS HEALTH COSTS

Change lets Maryland
stores save money,
offer better care options

Published in Automotive News May 13, 2019

Melissa Burden
mburden@crain.com

hris Ourisman felt frustrated and
powerless with little information or
control over what was really driving
soaring health insurance premiums
for his dealerships' employees.
With premiums earlier this decade rising at
rates of 18 percent, 22 percent and 6 percent
annually, Ourisman wanted a better option.
So nearly four years ago, he made the switch
to a health insurance company that provides
monthly data reports on how dollars are being
spent by the self-funded plan.
The change, Ourisman said, has allowed
him to better manage the most important
benefit he offers employees: health care.
And while the amount
saved has been significant
- $716,000 and counting
- it wasn't the motivator
for Ourisman, president of
seven dealerships for
Ourisman Automotive of
Marlow Heights, Md.
Ourisman: "Our
"It wasn't at first a discusresponsibility"
sion about economics,"
Ourisman told Automotive News. "It was how do
we get in control of our own health care benefits,
as opposed to just relying on these huge mega
companies to do it for us and we don't really
have any opportunity to steer our own ship."
The savings, which began when Ourisman
Automotive moved its coverage to WellNet
Healthcare of Bethesda, Md., for the 2016 calendar year, have been reinvested back into the
health plan to help keep costs down.

Minimal premium increases
With more information on how the plan is
performing and what's happening with the
population of employees that it covers, Ourisman's stores have had minimal premium increases to the plan, in the low single digits for
the past four years, he said.
"As an employer, it's our responsibility to
provide the best health care benefit that we
can for our team members," said Ourisman, a

Ourisman Automotive's Volkswagen-Volvo store in Bethesda, Md., switched to the WellNet plan.

Seven stores in the Ourisman
Automotive dealership group in
Maryland have switched to a
self-funded health insurance plan.
Not only are they saving money, but
Chris Ourisman, president of the
stores, said he has more control over
and a better understanding of the
important benefit he provides
employees.

fourth-generation employee in the family
business. "In doing so, there's an old adage: If
you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And
we needed to be more in control of the process so that we could provide our team members with the best coverage possible for them
and their families."
The Maryland stores on Ourisman's WellNet
plan are Ourisman Chevrolet of Marlow
Heights; Ourisman Motors of Frederick, which
sells Audi, Lincoln and Volvo vehicles under
one rooftop; Ourisman Honda of Bethesda;
Ourisman Mitsubishi of Marlow Heights;
Ourisman Volkswagen Waldorf and Ourisman
Subaru Waldorf under one rooftop; Ourisman
Volkswagen of Bethesda and Volvo Cars of
Bethesda under one rooftop; and Ourisman
Hyundai, Ourisman Mazda and Ourisman
Nissan in Laurel under one rooftop.
Kyle Balsis, director of human resources and
risk management for Ourisman Automotive,
said full-time employees at the stores who
elect coverage and the group's management
team are on the plan. The number covered
has varied from 225 to 250 people.
When Ourisman switched from longtime
provider Kaiser Permanente and from a fully

insured plan to a self-funded one, it mirrored
the former coverage, but made enhancements for employees, Balsis said. In the first
year, the cost to employees remained the
same, and increases since have been between
2 and 3 percent a year, Balsis said.
"Our employees went from being able to go
to seven facilities to being able to go to thousands of doctors, with no referral needed as
long as they're in the network," Balsis said.
Balsis, who gets monthly data reports and
can request specific items, can track spending
on specialists or what types of prescription
drugs members are using. Those reports have
allowed the dealership group to make changes
that help save employees money.

Money-saving changes
In the second year with WellNet, data indicated more employees were going to urgent care.
So Ourisman changed its coverage so that a trip
to urgent care was not treated the same as an
emergency room visit and the cost to employees
was dropped to a specialist visit copay.
It also used the data to offer lower-priced generic prescription drugs, Balsis said.
Ourisman said other dealership subgroups
under the Ourisman Automotive umbrella are
considering switching to WellNet.
WellNet works with customers on a replacement health care plan that is similar to bigger
insurance company plans, WellNet CEO Keith
Lemer told Automotive News.
WellNet underwrites the policy and manages the plan.
WellNet has almost 500 customers nationally, including 25 dealership groups. Some dealerships with WellNet have cut health insurance
costs 20 percent, which has helped boost profit
margins by up to 40 percent, Lemer said. c

Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement

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