Is Your Employer Offering the Best Health Insurance Coverage?

Health insurance is considered a key benefit in the workplace, therefore in order to attract and retain quality people, employers must offer the best health insurance coverage possible. Choosing a health care plan that matches employee needs, provides quality care, and is affordable for everyone can be a challenge. To efficiently and effectively meet this challenge, your employer must possess some rudimentary knowledge of the insurance industry, and the desire to provide you the best health insurance plan available.

What Your Employer Should Know Before Choosing the Best Health Insurance Coverage

• Your Health Care Needs. In order for your employer to choose the best health insurance coverage for you and your co-workers, he must have a good understanding of your needs. The plan should reasonably meet the health care needs of all employees, without offering benefits that no one will use, but everyone will pay for with higher premiums. To establish a point from which choices can be made, he should ask about your health insurance expectations. Do you have medical conditions that require you see a doctor regularly or are you more inclined to only utilize preventative care? Are you interested in maternity, prescription drug, dental, and vision benefits? What share of the financial responsibility can you feasibly shoulder on your salary?
• Types of Health Care Coverage. The health insurance market offers employers a number of coverage options, all of which have advantages and disadvantages. These options include traditional health insurance, health maintenance organizations (HMO), preferred provider organizations (PPO), point of service plans (POS), consumer-driven healthcare (CDHC), health savings accounts (HSA), flexible spending accounts (FSA), and more. Your employer should familiarize himself with these options so that he may make a sound and informed decision regarding your health insurance coverage.
• The Cost of Health Care. Collecting quotes and shopping around for health insurance can be tedious and time consuming, but it is a necessary part of the process. Your employer, the employee he appoints to the task or a licensed insurance agent should never settle on a single option. That single health insurance choice is only one of many, and may not be the one that offers your group the best coverage for the premiums paid.

Armed with this knowledge, you employer should be able to provide you with the best health insurance coverage available. For additional health insurance buying tips for businesses, visit www.covertheuninsuredweek.org , and download Guide to Health Insurance Options for Small Business. This guide, a collaborative effort between the Robert Wood Johnson and the Foundation Healthcare Leadership Council, offers business owners key information on how to provide employees the best health insurance coverage.

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