The Edge for November 2019
For business owners, the end of the calendar year means holidays, vacations, and researching health insurance for your company. Finding the right health insurance can be painstaking and time-consuming. We asked New Jersey business executives to share how they do it, and get through it, so employees are satisfied and the company budget is not broken. Here is what they said:
Consider These Four Factors
Considerations for companies when selecting a health plan for their employees include:
- Does the health plan have access to a broad network of participating physicians and hospitals? And, does the network cover the area where your employees and their dependents live?
- Does the health plan offer a broad range of health care and health improvement products that you can choose from?
- What member engagement resources does the plan offer? Do they support people with chronic care needs, and do they have navigators that can help members deal with the complex health care system?
- Is the plan fully insured or self-funded, and what are the pros and cons of both for your business?
– Amy Mansue, Chief Experience Officer, RWJBarnabas Health
Ask How Health Plans Communicate
Understand how your health plan will communicate with you. For example, will you have access to telemedicine, or the ability to receive important health reminders and other updates via text message? Ask about the availability of tools that can help you estimate the cost of care that you may require, and whether your employees will have access to health coaches. These resources can help enhance your employees’ health care journey. Often times when employers are considering health insurance options they focus on premiums. Affordability is undoubtedly important, but it shouldn’t necessarily be the deciding factor.
– Mike Munoz, Market President, AmeriHealth New Jersey
Ask Your Broker to Provide Options
For large groups or large companies, your broker may be able to negotiate rates on your behalf. For small organizations like us, the rates are set. I can go to competing brokers, but we are going to end up in the same place when it comes to the cost and coverage levels of various plans.
Still, I ask our broker to show us different plans for us to consider. The broker gives us a grid that allows us to compare not just premiums but key factors like deductibles, out-of-network fees, prescription co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs.
Our goal is to contain cost increases while finding a plan that offers sufficient medical coverage.
Once we choose a plan, we set up a meeting with employees to discuss changes. Our agent will bring in someone to help explain complicated issues and to field questions.
It’s not a fun process for the company or the employees, but it’s a necessary one.
– Becky Turetzkin, Vice President-Finance, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce
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