Common Pitfalls Employers
Face
Offering Small Group health
insurance plans in California to
your employees can include some
pitfalls as you can imagine when
dealing with something so
valuable and multi faceted. As
we point out some of the hurdles
Employers often face we are
happy to show you creative ways
to solve the issues.
Choosing The Right
California Health Insurance
Carrier
Choosing the wrong company to do
business with can be a
disaster. Make sure your
carrier has a strong AM Best
rating, has posted their
insurance license number on
their website, and has current
Provider contracts with your
doctors, medical groups, and
hospitals of preference. The
insurance industry can attract
fraudulent businesses because
there is so much money at
stake. Make sure you go with a
leading
California health insurance
carrier and not some fly by
night operation with a deal too
good to be true.
Information Overload
You will quickly discover one of
the biggest favors you can do
for yourself and your employees
is to narrow the options to the
best available and provide
highlighted information for
comparison, plan selection, and
enrollment . The subject often
confuses your employees quickly
which makes them anxious and
frustrated. We will assist you
in providing condensed
information which contains only
the specifics your employees
will need to make choices
crucial to their health care and
pocketbook.
Plan
Choice
State of California regulation
AB 1672 requires the
regulated California health
insurance carrier to offer
qualifying Small Businesses
coverage, and they also must
offer all the plans marketed to
all business. In other words
they can’t hide any plans from
you. Once qualified for
coverage the plan choice can be
tricky. A single plan is not
going to meet the needs of all
your employees. We suggest you
offer more than one plan choice
but not too many. Less is
more. Most commonly an HMO and
a PPO plan to make sure low out
of pocket on expenses and
flexibility of doctor choices
are available. Getting the
employees to agree on the right
plan for everyone is not always
easy, but with a little
flexibility any group can be
satisfied.
Employee
Participation
As discussed in our
overview on
employee participation
you may have a problem getting
enough employees to participate
in the group insurance plan you
are offering. This can be a
tricky one to solve as it’s
almost always a matter of
dollars contributed from you,
the Employer. The obvious fix
is of course to offer to pay a
greater amount of employee
premiums. More creatively
understand part of the problem
is that historically your
employees may not have had to
pay a percentage of their
premiums. As costs have risen
year after year and Employers
split the premium costs with
employees there is an adjustment
period where your employees
realize that health insurance is
not free.
In offering your benefits
package to your employees there
will be some hurdles, but
utilizing an
experienced Group health agent
can clear up the confusion and
jump the hurdles as they arise.
Other
important
resources:
California
Small Group
health quote
California
Small Group
online
doctor
listing
California
Group
Enrollment
and
Eligibility
Center
