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July 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This is the first in a series of audio education articles that CG Benefits Group and Technology Insurance Associates has produced.  Recorded by insurance broker, Paul Kaplan, the proceeding audio file introduces health savings accounts and contains information about how the underlying medical plan works, how contributions work, and advantages and disadvantages to HSA plans.  Health Savings Accounts can be a great way for you to save money pre-tax to dedicate to medical related expenses.  Many employers are starting to offer this as part of their employee benefits packages.  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did putting this together,

Paul Kaplan

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July 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Last week Healthcare.gov launched as a portal for U.S. citizens to explore the American health insurance market in an easily navigated and concise website. The website includes ways to find insurance coverage options, learn about preventive care, compare quality care, and ways to understand the new insurance laws.

First of all, finding insurance coverage options is a very easy process of selecting options that apply to your unique situation. Whether you are a small employer, an individual with an illness, unable to get health insurance, or a young adult under 26, the website directs to state specific resources for finding coverage.

For example, for a small IT consulting firm in New Jersey, I was informed that New Jersey is a guaranteed issue state for health insurance. An insurance carrier cannot turn a small business down for coverage if it meets the qualifications of small employer. I was then directed to Department of Banking And Insurance where I could read their online New Jersey small employer’s buyers guide to health insurance.

The preventive care section of the website partners with healthfinder.gov where you can enter your age and gender and recommended tests, immunizations, and other health tips tailored to your information is presented. This is a great feature to include in the website and I found it very helpful.

Next, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ hospital compare tool allows users to search hospitals by zip code and offers the ability to compare hospitals in your area by patient care surveys, care outcomes, medical imaging statistics, their Medicare coverage, and volume. This tool is an excellent addition to healthcare.gov and provides an easy way to compare hospitals.

Lastly, the website includes information about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in an easy to understand format. A timeline for establishment of reform changes is included to easily reference when certain provisions of the bill will go into effect.

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June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Changes are coming to United States health care this year because of recent changes made by the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This is a list of the five most important changes to be made that we think will impact technology companies and other small businesses.

  1. All new  individual and group health plans must provide first dollar coverage for preventive care.
  2. Individuals with pre-existing medical conditions can obtain health insurance coverage from a temporary high risk pool setup by the government.  This pool will expire when the insurance exchanges open in 2014.
  3. Beginning on September 23, 2010, parents can extend health insurance coverage to their children up to the age of 26.
  4. The first phase of the small business employer tax credit for health insurance starts.
  5. Individual and group plans must eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions for children.
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May 7, 2010 By 3 Comments

Here at CG Benefits we noticed a very interesting trend. For some employers that may have one or two employees enrolled, the individual health insurance marketplace may offer less expensive health insurance coverage as an alternative.

This happened recently but, one carrier for example, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield has lowered their rates to be very competitive with the employer based market. Their EPO and EPO Plus product is a viable method to insure yourself and your family, even if you are eligible for group coverage.

Now I’m not saying that every employer should run out and drop their group coverage and let the employees cover themselves in the individual marketplace. You will lose some of the benefits of the employer based group marker such as expanded support services such as billing, claims, and administration assistance provided to employers.

To check to see if you can benefit from new low rates for individual health insurance, get a quote now.

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April 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

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.

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Filed Under: Health Insurance, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As an employee of a company that has a group health insurance plan, you are only allowed to enroll during specified times. You are initially allowed to enroll when you are first hired. If your company has a waiting period for new hires, then you may have to wait 30 days or more to enroll in your New Jersey group health insurance plan.

Each year a special period called “open enrollment” occurs on the anniversary of the date that you policy has started. During this period any employee of the company that have previously waived coverage are allowed to enroll in the plan.  In addition, if you do participate in the policy, you’ll be able to update or change your coverage during the open enrollment period.

I am frequently asked if you go on vacation, are you are allowed to cancel your coverage and restart it in a few months after you return?  Insurance carriers do not allow employees to do this. You are only allowed to leave a plan and come back on in open enrollment, otherwise you are allowed to come back on the plan if a qualifying event occurs. An example of this is, if you waived coverage for existing coverage during open enrollment. Then you lost your coverage, you would be allowed to enroll in the health plan from the date your coverage terminated.

Please be aware that pre-existing conditions of 12-18 months may apply if you have a break of coverage of over 63 days.  While employee benefits programs change based on the employer, these types of changes to your health insurance policy are fairly standard.

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Filed Under: Company Health Insurance, Health Insurance Tagged With: ,
March 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

I have been selling New Jersey Employee Benefits and group health insurance to small and medium sized businesses since 1997. Each year I see the plan design change slightly; there was higher co-pay, a split co-pay, higher drug card, two tier drug card, three tier drug card, and Hospital deductibles, in network deductibles. During this period the rates were rising. It was a challenge to bring a plan to the employer that was a slight increase over last year. Well things have changed, there are very few insurance carriers now offering the plans. The ones that do have raised the rates so much that a thirty percent increase over last year’s is the norm. I sit at my desk wondering what is happening, I have no options for the employer any longer, the rates go up, the plans keep offering less and less benefits. I do not see people utilizing the services less, what I see are companies forgoing the benefits all together. Is this what the insurance carriers want? Do they want to make it so the only people that take the insurance are the very ill and wealthy? What are employers supposed to do? Their employees think it is the employer that is reducing the coverage or lowering their contribution to raise the rates. I have no answers, all I have are questions. The most important one I have is what is Washington going to do to address these issues? The bickering between the Democrats and the Republicans and an ineffective President only delays and stalls the issue. Seems to me the Insurance and Drug companies are in control. In the end it is the American worker that is bearing the brunt of this problem and the final resolution is not even flicker of light at the end of a very dark and long tunnel.

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