If you are a business owner or HR manager who is looking to offer health insurance to your company, a group health insurance plan is a smart choice. Any business, regardless of its size, needs coverage for their employees that works in everyone’s favor in terms of affordability, and there are several ways you can customize the plan to make sure it suits your company.
How Group Health Insurance Plans Work
A group health insurance plan will help your business cover employees’ health care expenses. It is typically a more affordable approach to insurance than an individual plan because the risks are spread across the employees as a group.
This type of insurance benefits all parties involved. As an employer, you will pay lower payroll taxes and will be able to deduct annual contributions when calculating your income taxes. Your employees, meanwhile, will pay less in yearly taxes because premiums can be paid with pre-tax dollars.
There are two main types of group health insurance plans: higher-premium plans and lower-premium plans.
High-Premium Plans
Generally speaking, plans that have a higher monthly premium will require a lower deductible when people get care.
Low-Premium Plans
A lower-premium plan will carry a lower monthly premium, but the trade-off is that people will tend to pay a higher amount for their deductible when they do get care.
Types of Group Health Insurance Plans
HMO
An HMO, or Health Maintenance Organization plan, will generally ask enrollees to choose a primary care doctor who will serve as their first point of contact. This doctor can refer them to specialists as needed. The enrollee will need to select a primary care doctor who is inside the insurance company’s network; care provided by those outside the network is typically not covered, except in certain emergency cases.
An HMO plan often offers lower premiums because of the contracts insurance companies have in place with providers within a network. However, they tend to provide less flexibility when it comes to how care is received.
PPO
A PPO, or Preferred Provider Organization plan, gives people greater freedom when it comes to seeing the doctors of their choice, although those who are outside of the insurance company’s network may see coverage at a lower level. Patients are not required to choose a primary care doctor under this type of plan.
A PPO plan generally offers greater flexibility, but this comes at the expense of higher premiums.
EPO
An EPO, or Exclusive Provider Organization plan, offers a combination of HMO and PPO plan features. There is typically no requirement for choosing a primary care physician with this type of plan, but there might not be any amount of coverage outside the insurance company’s provider network.
Speak To An Experienced Benefits Consulting Firm
If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of a group health insurance plan for your business as well as your employees, speak to the experienced benefits consulting firm at New City Insurance today to learn more. Please give us a call at 888.210.2759 or request a consultation online.