Monday, November 1, 2010

What kind of health insurance does a business provide to its employees?

Describe the measures they take in hopes to contain the cost of health insurance.
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There are several ways to keep the cost down but here are a couple. Statistics show that only 25-30% of insured americans meet their deductible in a calender year. So businesses could choose a plan with the highest deductible possible to keep the premium down and then reimburse it's employees (theoretically 30% of them) for incurred medical expenses, to whatever dollar amount they wish. This is called an HRA. Secondly, if the group is fairly young (average age less than 40) they can self fund their prescription coverage through a third party. The premiums charged for prescription drugs are a HUGE moneymaker for health companies (Blue Cross). If you self fund, the employer only pays for prescriptions that are used by the employees not a monthly premium rate from the insurance carrier. In the last 2 years here in Michigan, group health rates have increased up to 20% each year (differs from group to group). We use the reimbursement concept with all of our groups (about 50) and the self funded prescriptions with about 15 to keep that annual increase to about 6-8%. Hope this helps
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