Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Supplement plans are specifically designed to minimize the beneficiary’s financial risk in case of a medical emergency. Businesses can apply risk management strategies to protect their assets like Medicare protects yours.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic shook the world’s economy, but some businesses transitioned more easily to new methods of business, largely due to how they deal with risk. Experts recommend that companies create or strengthen their risk mitigation plans, moving forward, both to bounce back from the current pandemic and to minimize damages in the future.
Risk Management is Key
The onset of COVID-19 sent America into the first recession since 2009. Nearly 40 million Americans lost their jobs at the start of what the World Bank predicts will be the deepest economic recession since WWII. Economic activity in the U.S. alone is predicted to decrease by seven percent since international production and trade severely impacted because of the virus. Throughout the past months, the world has seen countless businesses close, but many of the companies thriving through the chaos have one thing in common: pre-existing, well-thought-out risk management procedures.
Strategy and Operations Partner Stijn Spitaels of EY Belgium claims that risk management tactics can help safeguard a business. He explains, “By constantly identifying, prioritizing, managing, and responding to multiple risks companies can ensure their future. A solid risk management approach also helps companies safeguard the wellbeing of their people, clients, and other stakeholders. It’s therefore key to have the right organization, people, and processes in place.”
Spitaels also provides a basic groundwork consisting of six steps from which organizations can start to develop their own risk management strategies.
- Create a task force to manage any unexpected events or crises.
- Constantly identify risks and dangers as they come up.
- Prioritize those risks by order or potential impact and likelihood of the event occurring.
- Plan a course of action.
- “Plan, monitor, act, evaluate – Repeat”
- Stay organized and monitor the organization for any changes.
There Aren’t Enough Risk Management Programs
According to the QBE North America 2020 Mid-Sized Company Risk Report, analyzed in the Insurance Journal West Magazine, 60 percent of mid-sized organizations do not have adequate crisis management plans in place. The same study also revealed that 60 percent of respondents reported that their companies lacked programs that informed workers on how to reduce potential risk exposure.
Researchers from the same study also asked participants what kinds of risk mitigation procedures were in place within their organizations. Shockingly, just above one-third, on average, of the organizations analyzed included one or more of the listed risk mitigation strategies listed, including pandemic-specific, macroeconomic-focused in case of a recession, natural disaster-based, and climate change-oriented risk management procedures.
It’s Not Too Late to Start Planning
For many businesses that had no risk management programs in place at the start of the pandemic, it is not too late to start planning and preparing, as the current pandemic and recession are predicted to continue for a while. Of course, planning for something after it occurs is not ideal, but it is a better option than not putting any risk management plan in place, at all. In an interview with Corporate Compliance Insights, Kim Hirsch of Fusion Risk Management claims that managers and executives who were unprepared at the start of the virus should continuously be gathering information, attempting to anticipate future impacts, and working towards understanding which parts of their business are crucial to their day-to-day operations and which are not.
Got Medicare Questions?
We hope this information on risk management in business is helpful to you.
If you have questions about your Medicare coverage, call Empower Brokerage today. Let us help with your Medicare questions so you can get back to the activities you enjoy the most. (888) 446-9157 or click here to get an INSTANT QUOTE.
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