If you’re a small business with a fully insured group health plan you’ve been misled about your options. You’ve been convinced that you have no choice but to use one of the mega-health carriers to provide health coverage for your employees. You must accept their renewal increases year after year and there’s nothing you can do about it. They’ll convince you that they need the increase because your claims went up and then convince you that they can’t share the actual claims information “because HIPAA prohibits it”. You may even believe that because you only have a few employees there’s no affordable options available to help you offer an employee health plan.
All of these things are false. There is a myriad of options available to you beyond being trapped by the insurance carriers. But you won’t hear about those options from carriers and brokers because they don’t include ways to hide profits by carriers and pay brokers undisclosed commissions. Giant insurance carriers that offer fully insured plans bank on a strategy to keep you in the dark by not sharing the very data they use to set your rates and increase your renewals. They’ll tell you that they’re restricted by privacy laws from sharing it with you. They’ll also claim that the data is proprietary and belongs to them. The truth is the privacy laws do NOT prohibit them them from sharing claims data. But it’s hard to argue the point when the entire industry tells the same lie. Your data is available if you work with a benefits advisor that knows how to get it. We know how to get it.
All big health insurance companies use the same strategy. They force you to bundle the different components of a health plan so you must use their own Pharmacy Benefit Manger (where they make the most hidden profit), their own Doctor/Hospital Network (where they hide true costs), their own Medical Management team (that protect their financial interest instead of yours), their own claims payment system (where they control the accuracy & quality of claims payment without your input), and they determine your pooling point (a kind of reinsuring your plan for large claims so they avoid the financial risk of unexpected losses) usually without telling you about it. This is all to your disadvantage both from financial and a business management standpoint. You have no input in how they manage your plan and no ability to impact the financial outcome. All you can do is take their annual increase without them having to justify their reasons. The only advice they can offer you is to switch to a cheaper plan or increase your employee’s premium. What other segment of your business purchases would you tolerate this kind of abuse?
Regardless of your employee size there are options to help you take control of your health plan costs and help you overcome the mega-insurance carrier bundling strategy. We’ll build a long-range strategy for you that will reduce your health plan costs instead of increasing them every year. And we’ll show you how to lower your employee out-of-pocket costs at the same time. We’ll provide the transparency required that will allow you to know your costs and make decisions that are right for you and your employees. We’ll help coordinate your benefit strategy – built specifically for you – with your overall business objectives so you can grow your business and remain competitive. It’s not as complex as the giant carriers want you to believe. They succeed by keeping you in the dark. We’ll help you design a benefits strategy with all of the advantages of a large employer but at a cost  in line with the size of your business. And the fact is you don’t have to wait for your next renewal to do something about it. You can start a no-obligation conversation with us to learn about your options now. We’ll help you get rid of your last renewal increase before your insurance carrier has a chance to prepare your next increase. Click or call below to schedule a brief conversation with us.

What They Don't Tell Small Employers

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