Small employers should make a free annual review of their benefits setup a standard part of their yearly routine, according to John Zabasky, CEO of WorXsiteHR Insurance Solutions, Inc. The review, which Zabasky describes as a plain look at how a plan is working rather than a sales pitch, examines enrollment numbers, claims patterns, and worker feedback to identify friction points and confirm whether the employer is still getting a fair deal on cost.
Zabasky said the idea grew out of his experience working with lower income, part-time, and seasonal workforces through the HealthWorX Plan, a no-cost medical plan subsidized by a non-profit, for which WorXsiteHR is the exclusive third-party administrator. In these segments, he noted, turnover and hours change quickly, so a plan that fit in January can become a bad fit by September without anyone noticing until renewal.
“Most employers only look hard at their benefits when something breaks,” Zabasky said. “I want employers checking in every year, on purpose, whether anything is wrong or not.” He recommends employers schedule the review automatically each year rather than wait for a problem to trigger one.
A good annual checkup, according to Zabasky, should give employers three things: a plain-language summary of how the plan performed, a short list of changes worth making, and a direct answer on whether costs are still in line with what similar employers are paying. The goal is to catch small problems before they turn into renewal-time surprises.
“I would rather flag a problem in June than have an employer find out at renewal that their workers stopped using the plan months ago,” he said. He added that the format should stay simple: a short meeting, a plain summary, and a small number of recommendations an employer can act on right away. “You are not trying to hand someone a hundred-page report,” he said. “You want them to walk away knowing three things: what is working, what is not, and what to do about it.”
The recommendation carries implications beyond administrative tidiness. For employers offering HealthWorX, an annual checkup habit is one way to ensure that access to care does not quietly erode over time. “A benefit only works if people use it,” Zabasky said. “A checkup is how you make sure that stays true year after year, not just in the first year.” For small businesses operating on thin margins, catching declining participation or cost creep early could mean the difference between a sustainable benefit and an unwanted surprise at renewal.
Zabasky founded WorXsiteHR in 2013 as the exclusive third-party administrator for the HealthWorX Plan. He holds a BA and an MA in History from UMBC, an MBA from Pepperdine, and a PhD in Information Systems from Concordia, and is currently a PhD candidate in Health Sciences at Liberty University.
