Good News On Insurance Renewal

Last week we met with our broker and learned that we are able to renew all lines of benefits coverage with no increase in cost.  As such we will also opt not to make any changes in insurance coverage. 

This doesn't come as a complete surprise.  We've been tracking our insurance plans' performance all year and we're running about 83% claims-to-premium.  That suggests a good renewal, but our last year with United Healthcare we had 84% and still received a 33% increase proposal. 

This year's good news comes mostly due to two things: very few high-dollar claims and a significant migration from the PPO plan to the High Deductible Plan.  The beauty of these results is that the overall cost of co-pays and coinsurance paid by our people is not significantly higher than last year.  This indicates smarter medical buying on the part of people in high deductible plans. It appears that, in aggregate, both workforce and employer saved money or at least held their costs static.

We will have our usual Open Enrollment period during the month of March.  There won't be much in the way of "new" information other than we'll continue to show people how the High Deductible Plan (and we're going to find another name for it) is the best plan for almost everyone.

More to come...

Jim

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On-Line Streamlining

On Friday of this week I will shut down both my Facebook and Twitter accounts. In place of communicating via those outlets I intend to be a more consistent and diligent blogger. There are several reasons for this move which I will explain just briefly. I usually check all these accounts after dinner. That process entails checking Nelson email, personal email, Twitter updates (both reading and writing), looking at who added or dropped me on Twitter, checking Facebook updates from my "friends", and leaving comments. I could set up a link that combines Facebook and Twitter updates into one process, but that only saves a few moments of what takes about 45 - 60 minutes. My other personal interests, be they gardening or guitar or a few home improvement projects slated for the spring, suffer from the time taken up with living in the on-line world. Every so often my wife would like for me to just sit down and watch TV with her and I rarely ever do. After slacking off for the winte
Read more

S and P Network Hospitals

With the start of Open Enrollment, one of the biggest issues for Tennessee staff is whether to take a plan with the Blue Cross Blue Shield network S or network P. The most common question is, "What's the difference?" Well, here you go: Hospitals in the S Network include Vanderbilt, St. Thomas, Baptist, Nashville General, Williamson Medical Center (Franklin), University Medical Center (Lebanon), and Middle TN Medical Center (Murfreesboro). The HCA hospitals, which are in the P network but not in the S Network, include: Centennial, Southern Hills, Summit, Skyline, Stonecrest, & Hendersonville Medical Center. A complete list of P and S network providers can be found her e. Note that there are several network listed on that page but only P and S are available in our plan. A complete list of HCA hospitals, none of which are available in the S network, can be found here . As always, see any member of your Human Resources team with any questions you might have.
Read more

Employer Response to Feb 17 General Strike

If you are an employer and have employees participating in today's called General Strike here are a few tips.  The demands of the General Strike are not employment related: they are political and are not about to your workplace's specific terms and conditions of employment.  As such this is not subject to the "no strike" clause of your collective bargaining agreement (if you have one), and is not a non-union "wildcat strike".  As such it is not NLRB protected concerted activity in my opinion. You can take corrective action in accordance with your policies. But be careful: this "is" protected First Amendment speech so terminating for absences related to this event could prove problematic.  Still you probably don't want people walking off the job without consequences and/or disrupting your workplace. Here is what you can do.  Insist that the strikers leave your premises, not block your entrances and exits, and not disrupt your business. You c
Read more