This is becoming an all too common dilemma for many businesses. There is the strong desire to continue offering the best health care available to your employees, but with budgets so tight, how much of an increase can you afford?
With the seemingly escalating costs of medical care, significant premium increases have become commonplace. Add a couple of large claims to that, and some of the added expenses brought in through Health Care Reform, and well, it gets pretty expensive.
Luckily there are several options that you can exercise to help lower these costs. That includes increasing to a higher deductible, changing your type of plan (maybe to a HSA), adding a HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement), or "shopping" around for another carrier who may give you better rates.
Shopping around should be your last resort, especially if you are happy with the carrier you have. Changing carriers is disruptive to your employees, particularly those that are actively using the plan for ongoing medical issues. It may mean changing hospitals, or their current doctors may not be in the new carrier's network requiring out of network reimbursements to the employee. Other options should be explored first.
But if those other options do not work, shopping or "going out to bid" to other carriers is the next step. Sometimes this can result in significant savings, and in some circumstances, none at all. This is where an advisor can counsel you of potential outcomes given your claims, composition of workforce, your past experience and the current marketplace.
The process can be very time consuming and tedious and should not be entered into lightly,, particularly for employers with under 100 employees. There is a lot of paperwork and research that needs to be done in order to make sure you end up with an equivalent program.
In my next two blogs we'll discuss:
Part II - Going out to Bid - the steps you need to follow
Part III - Challenges to Finalizing a New Carrier
No comments:
Post a Comment