You want to offer health benefits for your employees, but you may find the idea of researching your available options, making a decision that works for all of your employees, and figuring out how health insurance fits into your company’s budget all a little scary.
It doesn’t have to be. In fact, when you work with a CaliforniaChoice broker, shopping for and enrolling in employee benefits is easy.
Advantages for Your Business
There are several benefits to offering health insurance coverage to your employees, including:
Tax deduction: You can deduct the cost of your employees’ health insurance as a routine business expense. If your business is incorporated and you’re the business owner, your insurance costs are deductible, too.
Employee retention: A good employee benefits program helps you attract and retain quality employees. In fact, employees may consider accepting better benefits as an alternative to higher pay, which could reduce your overall business expenses. Offering employee benefits has been shown to improve employee health (by improving their access to health care) and decrease absenteeism.
Employee happiness: Employees appreciate it when you offer benefits – and they’ll be even more appreciative when they realize they can play a role in their own health coverage decisions. Getting their benefits through work may also be less expensive for them, as compared to looking for and securing insurance on their own.
Researching Potential Costs
Talk with your employee benefits broker about how CaliforniaChoice can help you offer benefits, while still controlling your costs. The CaliforniaChoice multi-carrier, employee-choice health insurance exchange gives you the ability to set the amount you want to spend on health benefits for your employees each year.
You can choose either a fixed dollar amount or fixed percentage – for example, 50% of the lowest-cost health plan. Whatever amount you choose, it’s locked in for a year. That gives you complete control over what you spend on your employee benefits.
If an employee selects a health plan that costs more than your contribution, he or she simply pays the difference. At renewal, you have the option to adjust your contribution amount – up or down – which gives you control over your budget for another year.
Increased Employee Choice
One of the most attractive aspects of the CaliforniaChoice program is that it offers you and your employees greater access to doctors, specialists, and hospitals – with health coverage from seven different health plans: Anthem Blue Cross, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente, Sharp Health Plan, Sutter Health Plus, UnitedHealthcare, and Western Health Advantage.
One of your employees might choose a PPO from Anthem Blue Cross because it includes his or her doctor or a certain hospital in its network. Another employee who rarely visits the doctor might select an HMO plan from Kaiser Permanente. A third employee might select a Health Savings Account-compatible HMO plan from UnitedHealthcare because of its cost and tax advantages. Whatever your employees’ needs may be, it’s their Choice!
Offering your employees this level of Choice , without increasing your company’s cost (as compared to a single plan solution), gives you a recruiting advantage and a tool to increase employee retention as described above.
Complimentary Help
Contrary to what you might think, using a health insurance broker doesn’t cost you anything. In fact, using a broker could save you money. That’s because an experienced broker has the expertise and technology to help you find the most competitive benefits for your company, while ensuring you have access to the health care providers you and your employees want.
A broker can also help ensure you and your business stay up to date and in compliance with changing regulations in connection with health reform and the ACA. He or she will also help you get your group enrolled – whether you choose online or paper enrollment. (It’s your choice.) All you have to do is provide some basic information about your business and employees (and dependents, if they’re to be included).
Best of all, because a broker is paid a commission by the carriers for the products they sell, using one won’t cost you anything. And they’re available to assist you after the sale, too – to resolve claims-related issues, add coverage for a new employee, or whatever you need.
Get Started Now!
CaliforniaChoice makes it easy to shop and compare plans – whether you’re moving from a current health plan or considering employee benefits for the first time.
To learn more about how CaliforniaChoice can deliver more options for your employees, while still helping you control your costs, contact your employee benefits broker. If you don’t already have a broker, we can help you find one.
