5 Ways to Save Money on Your Company’s Health Insurance
5. Package your benefits. Some insurance carriers provide discounts if you purchase multiple types of insurance from them.
4. Check out alternative methods of funding your insurance. Self insurance is popular in the middle to large group market, but now some carriers are offering self insurance for small groups.
3. Explore plans with higher deductibles and co-pays. The higher the deductible and co-pay are, the lower your premiums will be. This will increase out of pocket expenses, but for some groups with low utilization; this may be a good alternative.
2. A mini-medical plan with high deductibles and limited benefits may be a wise choice for young workers who don’t need a richer benefit plan.
1. Purchase consumer directed healthcare plans such as HRAs or HSAs. Many of the HSA plans for example, have come down in price making them an excellent way to save money for medical expenses while having lower premiums.
Life Is Good When You’re a Hoosier
I recently had the extreme pleasure of reading a well thought out opinion column in the Wall Street Journal by the Republican Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. Mr. Daniels shared his experience with Indiana state employee’s usage of Health Savings Accounts.
In review of the usage and cost savings, Indiana will stand to save $20 Million Dollars due to high enrollment in the HSA. An HSA is an outstanding addition to a company’s benefit plan and in the case of Indiana State workers in my opinion is successful due to high contribution rates provided by the government.
For example, the whole deductible of $2,750 is put into the HSA for the employee to use for any qualified medical necessity. For employees, “about 6 percent last year, who use their entire account balance, the state shares further health costs up to the maximum-out-of-pocket of $8000, after which the employee is completely protected.”
This generous level of contribution by the state is seldom seen in the private sector. Our New Jersey Employee Benefits Specialists have implemented many HSA plans and usually the deductible is funded by the employer, but beyond that it is the employees responsibility to pay out of pocket for expenses or contribute themselves to the HSA plan.
I would like to see a wider adoption of HSA plans in the public and private sector. I hope the current administration in Washington makes consumer directed healthcare a bigger priority and looses the mentality that regular workers can not afford HSA plans due to the high deductibles present. The focus should be on providing incentives for employers to at least contribute to the HSA in the amount of the deductible since the savings on the premiums are so significant.
What is a Co-pay?
One of our goals at CG Benefits Group is to help employees understand their benefits. Many employees are often confused about how various components of their health care work such as deductibles, co-insurance, and co-pays.
In the first of our series aimed at helping you understand your benefits, we will discuss what a co-pay is in health insurance plans and how to find out what your co-pays are.
A co-pay is a defined amount of money that is used by the insurance company to charge you for utilizing a service. Commonly you are charged a co-pay for doctor, specialist, and hospital visits. Typical co-pays can range from fifteen Dollars for a doctor visit to one hundred and fifty Dollars per day for a hospital visit.
If you are unsure about how much you co-pays are, then look on your insurance ID card. Most insurance carriers print the co-pays for your primary care physician and specialist visits on the ID card for convenience. If you insurance carrier does not list the co-pay, or if you would like to find out how much your co-pay is for other services, then you can call CG Benefits Group and speak to your assigned customer service representative at 888-242-4675.
