The American consumer likes choices. Shopping and comparing value and prices on clothing, groceries and furniture is commonplace.
Choosing a health plan should be no different.
For a long time, employees have felt as if it’s “take it or leave it” when handed their one health plan option by their employer. And they were right to feel that way.
With United HealthCare’s Multi-Choice solution for small employers employees now have a choice as to which health plan best suits their needs. They can choose how much financial exposure they can tolerate, Rx benefit, premium cost and more.
Take a look at this short video and decide if this approach is right for your com...
Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative agency of Congress, called for a cancellation of an $8.3 billion dollar Medicare Advantage bonus program. The money is going toward a three-year project intended to make quality improvements to Medicare Advantage plans and financially reward those plans that are scoring well by the Department of Health and Human Services. However, the GAO uncovered that the plan’s spending is significantly larger than all other Medicare pilots undertaken in the last 20 years. Plus, they found the majority of the money is going to plans earning only three to three-and-a-half stars, an "average plan" score.
The gover...
Though the costs of healthcare are rising, there are still some things employers can do to help lower their healthcare costs, without laying off employees. An article in Forbes magazine explained 10 ways that small businesses could reduce the costs of their healthcare plans, even in this economy.
A few ideas highlighted in the article include: Get tons of quotes from numerous carriers to get the best rates possible for your group. Implement a wellness program in the office that will promote better health and fewer heavy medical bills down the road. Look into voluntary insurance that employees can help pay into, so that the full cost does not stay with the employer. Tak...
Be clear and concise. Confusing RFPs create questions and questions take time to answer. Multiply the number of questions by the number of carriers to whom you send RFPs and it’s not hard to imagine that a good amount of time can be saved by sending requests that are clear from the start. Examples of things that tend to trip up carriers when quoting: groups with multiple and/or out-of-state locations, unclear natures of business, and dozens (or, in some cases, hundreds) of pages of benefit summaries to sort through. Try to anticipate questions and answer them before they are asked.
Send a quality census. Many group medical carriers now have software that accomm...
2011 has come and gone, but there is still a little time for your clients to take advantage of tax-free funding of their HSA for the 2011 tax year. As long as the client was covered under a qualifying high-deductible health plan in 2011, they are allowed to make a contribution to their HSA any time before April 15, 2012 and have it attributed to their 2011 contributions.
This contribution can be put on Form 8889 of their tax return in order to reduce taxable income. Clients may want to take advantage of this extended deadline upon realizing they owe taxes—suppose a client finds they owe $200 in taxes and is at the 20% tax bracket. A $1000 contribution to their HSA will...
