Health insurance remains as expensive, confusing and out-of-reach for most small businesses as ever. If your business already has a health insurance plan, you probably know that costs keep rising. And if you don’t, all of the talk about health insurance reform so far has probably only made your business even more befuddled. A survey by eHealthInsurance.com shows that less than 20 percent of business owners believe they’d find better benefits if they shopped for health insurance this year.
But hidden in the health insurance fog are some valuable benefits and cost-saving opportunities – plus potential pitfalls you should know about. Basically, small-business owners who haven’t boned up on the latest changes could miss out on important chances to save money.
Here are new ways to get the most from your small-business health insurance:
• Grab a tax credit. If you’re a small employer with a health insurance plan and pay at least half of employee premiums, you probably qualify for a new health care tax credit worth thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.
• Capture new coverage. Health reform requires that new plans include preventive-care screenings at no cost, and no lifetime limits on your health coverage. But if your coverage predates reforms passed in March 2010, your plan is probably “grandfathered” under the old rules and won’t provide the new benefits, so you might want to shop for a new plans.
• Customize benefits to costs. Ask employees what benefits they really need and want, and construct a health plan that gives them only the benefits they are willing to help pay for. (Keep in mind, however, that it’s illegal to ask employees to provide specific information about their health history or what kinds of benefits they use most.) But, you can find out if they’re interested in chiropractic care or dental insurance. You might also create an anonymous survey to find out what benefits they value most, or if they’d prefer higher monthly premiums with low deductibles, or vice-versa.
• Share the costs. Consider the possibility of having employees contribute to monthly premiums, especially if they want broader benefits. According to the eHealthInsurance survey, many small employers are still unaware that they can have employees share the cost of monthly premiums.
• Investigate new health-coverage options. Options include Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs). Such plans often come with higher deductibles, which many employees fear. But some plans now make it easier to contribute to an employee’s HSA account and eliminate that fear.
Daniel Kehrer can be reached
at editor@bizbest.com.
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