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At this point you've seen that there are a variety of tools available but the question remains, "How do we put these to work in real life?".

The following is an example of one of the many strategies available to reduce cost without reducing benefits.

Here we go...

First the numbers. Below you will find two popular plans from a prominent health insurance provider. We will use these numbers as an example with the assumption that the group is basically healthy with some employees using their coverage extensively and others minimally. Plan 1 is the current plan for our sample and Plan 2 is the recommended replacement.

When these changes are made, your employees will have a much higher deductible than they were used to and possibly no copay for doctor's office visits. Let's fix that now.

We will now set up an HRA plan with a deductible gap provision. The company will reimburse the employee for any medical expenses that they incur above and beyond the $500/$1,000 that they were previously responsible for. Reimbursement can also be made for doctors office visits if so desired. Keep in mind that if your employees are paying a percentage of their premium, reducing premiums will be saving them money also.

How much should be reimbursed? This is a number that needs to be arrived at by the employer and the Benefits Tamer jointly. In theory if all of the savings were available as a reimbursement, it is highly unlikely that the employer would ever use up the savings. Some employees that are healthy, may never go to the doctor. Others who didn't normally satisfy their $500/$1,000 deductible would not access the reimbursement dollars either, if the plan was set up with very specific parameters.

That's one concept for your consideration. There are many options from simply increasing the deductible to taking advantage of some cutting edge plans that are now available. One insurance company is giving a variety of deductibles under the same plan, that are based on the employee agreeing to a health evaluation, taking health advice and how they handle their smoking habit, if they have one. In essence, the employees that take care of themselves will have lower deductibles than those who do not. The Benefits Tamer has access to a variety of insurance companies and their products through The Benefits Edge, LLC.