If you have a group health insurance plan, you know that you have a renewal date each year for your group benefits. Sometimes, companies get questions from employees or ideas throughout the year to add new lines of coverage to their insurance benefits.
Recently, a Bernard Health client came to me asking if they could add Dental and Vision group insurance coverage as of January 1, 2012. The answer, of course, is yes!
The second part of that question is if the new Dental and Vision benefits could renew alongside their other company Medical insurance benefits at their renewal date of 7/1. Again, the answer is yes!
Most of the time insurance companies can put a benefit in place at a certain date and have it renew on a different date. There is usually more paperwork involved but we've found with our experience it's worth it to renew all your benefits at one time instead of having two different open enrollment periods for separate benefits.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was nice to catch up on family and reflect on all the things that I am thankful for this year. I have to admit, coming back to work Monday was difficult. ;)
As I get back into my daily routine here at Bernard Health HQ in Nashville, Tennessee, I've been thinking about some new insurance information that I've learned recently. The saying goes "You learn something new everyday" and that is so true with my job. I get excited everytime I learn something new and can't wait to share!
Recently, I was presenting to a large group here in Nashville, Tennesee and the following question came up.
Question: Can I use my Health Savings Account money to pay for a previous medical expense from a prior plan that was not HSA eligible?
Answer: No, unfortunately prior insurance expenses incurred while on a Copay plan (non-HSA eligble) can not be paid for out of your HSA.
This was a GREAT question and a new answer that I had learned after doing some research.
Every new year, we always stride to start the beginning of the year on the right foot. In the case of HSA contributions, this is no different. It's so important to save money on taxes by contributing to your Health Savings Account on a regular basis through payroll.
In 2011, Health Savings Accounts have a contribution limit of $3050 for individuals and $6150 for families. If you are age 55 or older you can put in an additional $1000 "catch up" contribution.
Great news! The
contribution limits are going up in 2012 to $3100 for individuals and $6250 for families. There also continues to be a "catch up" contribution of $1000 for those 55 or older.
It's never to early to start thinking about your 2012 budget goals!
Recently, I've been working with a new large group health insurance client here in Nashville, Tennessee on their benefits renewal for January 1, 2012. They have several locations, including a location in California.
For 2012, this Bernard client decided to offer Voluntary Long Term Disability, which is a new offering to all employees. It was brought to my attention that the employees who work in California are already provided a state disability policy, paid for with state taxes.
In this situation, one may ask, "How does the state disability work if I enroll in the Voluntary Long Term Disability option?"
This is a great insurance question! The answer is, depending on when the LTD insurance policy kicks in, the LTD plan will fill the difference between the state plan and 60% (depending again on the LTD plan benefits) of employees earnings.
Like I've said before, health insurance renewal season is here with a lot of Bernard Health group health insurance clients renewing their benefits at the beginning of the new year, January 1st.
I look at health insurance renewals on a daily basis, and a question that I often get is, "How is my renewal determined?" If you are a small group, you are pooled with other small groups within your carriers specific book of business. If you are a larger group, your renewal is based on only your groups insurance claims experience for that year.
Small groups are what I currently specialize in, and there are many difference factors that go into a renewal for a small company. Just to name a few of those factors:
- Trend: The cost of the carriers responsibility to pay medical and pharmacy claims and utilization. All small groups receive the same trend increase/decrease.
- Base rate: This factor includes plan design, group size changes, network, etc.
- Risk Adjustment: Groups specific change in health claims/risk. If your group had a good year of claims or bad year of claims, it would be reflected in this category.
- SIC Code: Changes in your industry's specific code. Sometimes their can be a change in cost or utilization for your specific industry.
- Demographic: This one is a biggie! This factor is based on your groups enrollment mix. Specially, if you had someone change age bands (example: aging from 44 to 45 or 39 to 40) or if you have fewer employees on your plan then you had last year.
- Reform: This is changes in any state regulations
I hope this helps provide some insight as what is taken into consideration for a group's health insurance renewal. Happy renewal season!
Happy Friday everyone! Today, I'm so excited to share that Bernard Health is currently working with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee to integrate our online benefits enrollment system, the BerniePortal with their internal system. As you may know, last year I helped lead the integration efforts with HSA Bank.
This integration makes it possible for our group health insurance clients in Tennessee to make changes in the Bernard Health enrollment system, and have those changes automatically sent to Blue Cross to update in their records. No more updating the information in Blue Access! I know all the HR Managers and insurance Plan Administrators will be so excited when this special project goes live.
The project is underway and I will be excited share updates to our followers and announce when the project is completed. Until then, have a great weekend and stay warm.
Hello readers! I'm pleased to annouce that yours truely has been annouced as a finalist in this years
NEXT Awards as Healthcare Start-Up of the Year. We are so excited here at Bernard Health just to be named a finalist.
The NEXT Awards are put on each year by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce to recognize Middle Tennessee individuals and companies making a significant impact on the local community. There will be three finalists and one winner in each category.
Our fingers are crossed and will keep you updated on the outcome next week. Thank you all of you who support Bernard Health, we are so appreciative and thankful!
I just completed an October 1st health insurance renewal for a medium sized company here in Nashville, Tennessee. The group came on board with Bernard Health last year, and as a result of Bernard's analysis, they decided to change their health insurance benefits strategy by only offering a Health Savings Account based plan to their employees.
There were a few employees who were still unsure of the Company HSA plan after a year, so the company decided to re-offer the co-pay plan along the HSA based plan as an option. We led several meetings with employees to educate them on how the plans worked and walk through a few scenarios to determine which plan was best for them.
After the meetings, the employees of the company had a few days to make their elections and changes to their insurance benefits. Once the elections were made, we are excited to annouce that no one switched back to the co-pay plan offering and everyone remained on the HSA based plan!
This means we received 100% participation in the Health Savings Account based plan even after offering traditional copay option.
Music to our ears!
This past Tuesday, Bernard Health held it's first ever seminar at the Hilton Garden Inn here in Nashville, Tennessee. The event showcased speakers Roy Ramthun, former Healthcare Advisor to President George W. Bush, and Sam Shallenberger, CFO of RJ Young Company.
The event started at 8am with a plated breakfast for guests and then the seminar started as Roy Ramthun shared a few White House stories before getting into the nitty gritty of how Health Savings Accounts work and how they are beneficial for companies of all sizes and individuals.
Next, Sam Shallenberger had the crowd laughing with a few jokes and shared a compeling case study about his company and their first and second year savings after switching employees to a HSA based insurance plan.
What a great event for Bernard Health! We are all so thankful and appreciative to all of you who attended. We look forward to many more events!
Happy Tuesday readers! So far this week at Bernard Health, I've helped quote two of our new insurance clients and had a situation come up that I thought would be informative.
Does your company have employees who work out-of-state and work from home? If so, the information below is helpful for you!
When gathering group health insurance quotes for a company, one of the main questions we have to answer is, "Does the group have multiple locations?" The answer is easy when the locations are stationary and in a retail/office space. What I didn't know is that some insurance companies will count your company as having multiple locations when you have employees working from home in other states or areas.
Most insurance companies will tell you that this generally costs more when you have multiple locations out-of-state, due to medical bill claims processing.
Last week, I met with one of my group health insurance clients in Tennessee who is interested in learning more about expatriate coverage from their current health insurance carrier. They have an employee who will be relocating overseas for a year and need to find the best health plan design for that employee while he is abroad.
The following are questions and answers from this company's current insurance carrier that helped me understand which health insurance will be the best fit for an employee relocating overseas.
- Can you help provide information on what the current employee coverage is outside of the US (if the employee doesn't enroll in Expat coverage)?
Benefits are the same as current policy since member will be on the current policy. Member will have to pay for services upfront and submit claims for reimbursement. Inpatient Facility claims at the current carriers participating facility would be considered cashless since member would only be liable for deductible, coinsurance, copay, and non-covered services at the time of discharge. If there are no carrier participating facilities in the country of relocation and since the member has no PPO providers from which to choose, all claims are handled at the in-network benefit level.
- Can you provide information on what the Expat coverage does include?
The Expat coverage is a fully insured product, and Expats have two coverage options, High and Standard. The High Option pays benefits at 100% and the Standard Option at 80%. If member is currently living in the US, then the Expat coverage would not begin coverage until she/he left the country. Dependents that would be covered also must reside outside the US or be covered by the domestic policy.
- What is the cost of the ExPat coverage?
Expat coverage is age and sex rated and averages between $6,000-$10,000 per year per individual. Expats can process only annual premium payments for groups with less than 15 Covered Expats.
These questions and answers are from a particluar local carrier. If you are interested in Expat coverage for you or an employee, please contact your current broker or insurance provider to help answer any questions.
During health insurance
open enrollment period, it can be a busy time for a company because there are a lot of decisions to be made and information to be communicated to our groups and their employees. Bernard Health clients always ask great questions during this process including one inparticluar that I received recently that I would like to share.
Question: If we have a new hire during open enrollment, can they come on the plan effective our renewal date without having to met the waiting period requirement?
Answer: During open enrollment employees still have to meet the waiting period outlined in the group's insurance contract. The open enrollment period is there annually for employees that may have previously waived the insurance coverage to then come on or for them to add dependents that were previously not on the plan. It does not waive the waiting period for those employees have not met the requirements.
During some recent Bernard Health insurance new group and renewal meetings, there is a great question that gets asked a lot from employers that I thought would be helpful to share with our blog readers.
Question: As an employer, are we able to offer two medical health insurance plan designs to our employees?
Answer: Yes, you are able to offer two group medical health insurance plans to employees, as long as they are lower than a certain percentage difference in premiums.
Each carriers percentage is different, therefore it's always best to ask your insurance broker about offering two plan designs and if it's the best fit for the company. It can be a great benefit for employees to have options, when thinking about offering health insurance benefits to your employees.
Here at Bernard Health, I specialize in helping group health insurance clients in Tennessee with 2-25 employees. During their renewal time or even when a company is bringing on a new health plan, a few too many of my groups have been on the borderline of not meeting eligiblity requirements set forth by insurance companies.
The eligibility requirements for most group health insurance plans in Tennessee is that a company must have at least 50% of eligible employees, whether they take coverage or not, enroll in the Medical insurance benefit. If your company has a lot of turnover, it may be difficult to always make sure you're compliant with the 50% eligibility rule. That's why it's important to evaluate it during your renewal time or you could be subject to an audit by the insurance carrier.
If your company is audited and less than 50% of eligible employees are on the health insurance plan, it could cost everyone their benefits. This means that the health insurance carrier has the right to drop the health plan and not cover any employees for the group!
Have you recently checked to make sure your company is compliant with the eligibliity rule of thumb?
That's right folks! Not only is football season upon us, it's also a busy time for companies that renew their health insurance benefits at the end of the year to begin preparing for the next year.
Here at Bernard Health, we created a process that is about 70 days in length to help make sure our group health insurance clients in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois are well prepared for their renewal date.
I've had the privledge of helping about 30 Bernard Health clients with their renewal this year, including medium to large sized companies. If you are in HR, you might dread renewal season and that's where Bernard Health can help.
We recently launched a product called the
BeriePortal to help clients organize open enrollment and payroll mangement during renewal season. Is your renewal season still a mess? Contact us here at Bernard Health and we'd be glad to analyze your situation!
Another renewal completed and another happy client! This time, it might be the most savings I've been able to help advise yet. Here's the low down:
- The client's group health insurance renewal with their existing carrier came in with a 21.4% increase.
- Bernard Health ran initial rates with competitive health insurance carriers for medical, dental, vision and life coverages.
- After looking over the initial rates, the company decided on the best health insurance carrier, plan designs and network for the medical coverage, which decreased their annual medical costs by $15,881.28/year .
- They also decided on the best dental, vision and life carrier and kept the same plan design which lowered their annual dental costs by $2,216.64/year and life costs by $1,240.20/year.
- The company decided to offer a new benefit plan to employees, Voluntary Vision.
- This gives the company a total decrease of $19,338.12 of what they were paying in 2010 and savings of $29,095.65 from what they would have paid if they accepted their medical, dental and life renewals.
Talk about savings! What has your broker done for you lately? :)
Everyone likes to save a little money these days, who doesn't?! I'm definitely always up for a good sale. Recently, one of my group health insurance clients decided was approached by another insurance broker in Nashville, Tennesee for their health insurance benefits.
Here is the situation that occured:
- During their renewal process, this group was looking at getting firm rates from a new insurance carrier.
- The group sent all the paperwork needed to get firm rates to both me and the other broker.
- The broker and I came back with different rates for the same plan design (Note: this is very unusual because if the same information is provided about the company to the health insurance carrier, the carrier will provide the same rates to every broker that quoted the group so they don't discriminate broker to broker)
- I asked my contact at the carrier, "How can this be that we have different rates?"
I learned that the other broker forgot to include pharmacy coverage in their health insurance quote. This was a great opportunity to let the client know why their was a difference in our quoted insurance rates. It was also a great time to point out that not every broker specializes in health insurance benefits, and because of that, these are the types of errors that can occur. Luckily, we were able to maintain this group has a Bernard Health client and save them a lot of money!
Today, I received a question from a current Bernard Health group health insurance client here in Tennessee. The email was from the spouse of a full time employee who also happens to work for the company. The spouse works part time for the company and was interested in know, "Can I have deductions taken out of my paycheck to contribute to my husband's Health Savings Account?"
The answer is
no. Health Savings Accounts are not joint-owned, therefore the payroll deductions can only come from the account owner. Even if the spouse works for the company too as a part time employee.
What a great question from a insurance group that helped me learn something new today!
Hi Everyone! I'm Jocelyn Chambers. Just to tell you a little bit about myself, I grew up in a couple different places, including Cincinnati, OH and Cookeville, TN (two totally different ends of the spectrum -- I know!). I graduated from the University of Tennessee (Go Vols!) with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. After graduation I moved to Chicago (Go Cubbies!) and eventually settled back in Nashville. With just getting married and working full time at the most amazing company ever, Bernard Health, things are finally starting to calm down! :)
As part of my duties here at Bernard Health, I've been put in charge of event planning an amazing insurance seminar September 27, 2011. The seminar will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee and will discuss Health Reform and Health Savings Accounts.
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