There is a compelling piece in today’s WSJ by Dana Mattioli about the frequency with which small businesses are finding it necessary to cancel employer-sponsored health care coverage for their employees.

Citing data from the National Small Business Association, the article mentions that:

1. “About 10% of small businesses are considering eliminating coverage over the next year, up from 3% in 2005, and

2. “Just 38% of small businesses provided health insurance last year compared to 61% in 1993.”

The obvious cause – the continued run-up in health care coverage premiums in the face of a declining economy. Contrary to the way these decisions are often portrayed in the media, Ms. Mattioli takes pains to establish that in reality, these are extremely painful moves for a business owner or CEO to make.

Aside from trading more job cuts for health insurance, or raising employee premiums and co-pays, there are things that employers can do to hold the lid on health care costs. Here’s but one example, based on simple human greed, and the notion that each and every one of us needs to become a better health care consumer:

On the premise that many (most?) medical bills, particularly hospital bills contain billing errors, not necessarily in the payor’s favor, organizations would be well advised to adopt incentives that cause patients to audit their bills, and reward them for catching/reporting errors.

More specifically, adopt a program that encourages employees to obtain and carefully review all of their health care bills, and rebates to them fully 50% of any recovered over-billing. As a case in point, when our daughter was born, while looking over the bill, I noticed that we (my company) had been charged for use of a delivery room and for anesthesia. The only problem was that my wife never went to a delivery room, and didn’t take so much as an aspirin in the birthing process (one strong lady!) As the company’s HR director, I dutifully made sure the billing error was corrected, saving the organization several hundred dollars.

By providing a reasonable, self-funded incentive, you are able to achieve goal congruence with your insured employees, and save a lot of money in the process. Try it, I think you’ll like the results.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows