10 reasons to consider the State Bar of Georgia Private Insurance Exchange for your employee benefits

As we approach the busy insurance renewal season, you may be looking for a better solution for offering health and other benefits to your employees. Here are the top ten reasons for considering the Private Insurance Exchange for you and your employees.

1.  Choices choices choices.

Unless you have a team of robots, your employees are all unique and so are their health care and benefits needs. A common issue with traditional small employer-sponsored group health insurance is that typically the employer must choose one carrier provider and a limited number of plan options for employees to choose from. This inevitably leaves many employees without a plan that best suits their needs. With over 50 different health plans to choose from through leading carriers, every employee will have the ability to choose their own plan that meets their specific needs. No more complaints from employees about the health plan you chose for them. If you still want to have a group plan, there is a multiple plan choice group plan option as well.

2. Decision support tools (Watch Video).

Is it possible to offer more options and keep the decision process easy for your employees? Absolutely, this is where our private exchange thrives. Your employees can “Ask Emma”. “Ask Emma” is much more than an interactive decision support tool. She represents a whole new approach to benefits shopping, enrollment, and education, helping employees make more informed and personalized decisions across a range of benefits offerings – all through an engaging experience. “Ask Emma” guides employees through the buying process by asking a few simple questions and then suggests the plans that fit their individual needs. Unlike other tools in the market today, “Ask Emma” is fully integrated into the shopping and enrollment platform for a seamless consumer experience. You won’t need to field questions from your employees about which plan to choose. Our “Ask Emma” exchange technology along with our licensed Benefits counselors will take care of that for you.

3. Rein in healthcare costs with Defined Contribution (Watch Video).

Recruiting and retaining key employees is important to every company, and your employee benefit program is a key part of the compensation you offer to your employees. Due to the rising costs of traditional employer-sponsored health insurance, defined contribution is gaining popularity across the U.S. You decide how much, they decide what works. With defined contribution, you give your employees a set amount of money to spend on benefits—it’s like an allowance for their insurance—and they use that money to shop for the coverage that meets their individual needs. So instead of offering a “one-size-fits-all” health and benefits package, you empower your employees to choose the combination of coverage that’s just right for them. You set up rules around where the money is spent. For example, if you gave your employees a monthly allowance of $350, you could decide that $300 can be spent on health insurance, and $50 can be used for dental coverage, a vision plan or other benefits. And if you want to keep offering some plans that are 100% employer-paid—like long-term disability or life insurance—that’s up to you. We make it easy for you to decide how to allocate the funds, and our decision support tools help your employees decide which plans work best.

4. No more hassling with group renewals each year.

Every employer that offers a group health plan knows the routine each year when it’s time to renew the health plan. Dealing with the annual rate increases and changing provider networks is a pain and can take up a lot of your valuable time. “Should we change plans this year?” “Should we raise the deductible to control premium costs?” These are decisions that many employers commonly struggle with every year. With the private exchange, you have the option to use our platform of individual health plans that do not require an annual renewal by the employer. Your employees are notified each year to log into their online account and review their own health plan choices and make any changes they desire. No making plan choices for your employees, and no paperwork to submit. Enrollments are handled electronically through the exchange portal.

5. Premium savings.

When comparing similar plan benefits, 2014 average individual major medical premium rates were less expensive than small group health insurance rates in many GA counties. A true cost comparison between your group plan and the comparable plans in the exchange is provided by a Member Benefits counselor with each exchange proposal. In most cases, premiums will be lower for you and your employees by moving to the private exchange.

6. Reduced administration.

All changes, additions, terminations, and billing administration are handled through your Private Exchange Online HR admin portal. Once the exchange is setup, there is little to no paperwork involved. Through their own online account, employees can access their coverage information, print ID cards, search networks, and request changes. This relieves firm administrators from a lot of the work that drives them nuts, allowing them to focus on other important activities more vital to your business.

7. Turnkey Ancillary benefits.

Already plugged into your private exchange is a voluntary ancillary benefits platform similar to what a Fortune 500 company offers to their employees. For many small employers, it is difficult to meet contribution and participation requirements that ancillary plan providers have in order to offer quality employee benefits. These hurdles have been removed in the Private Exchange.  Through the exchange, your employees may voluntarily choose to purchase dental, vision, life, long term disability, short term disability, accident, critical illness, cancer, hospital indemnity, AD&D, ID theft protection, 24/7 telemedicine, pet insurance, auto insurance, and more. All specially priced through the exchange and completely voluntary to your employees. As the employer, you may choose to contribute some funds to help your employees cover the cost or not. It’s up to you. You also have the option of removing any of the ancillary plans that you do not want to offer. Ancillary benefits are provided by some of the best and well-known providers in the U.S like Allstate, Guardian, MetLife, and Nationwide.

8. Consolidated billing.

Paying premiums is another administrative hassle that becomes significantly easier with the private exchange. All changes made through the exchange admin portal are automatically reflected on your consolidated bill which can be viewed online at any time. Member Benefits consolidates the billing on one statement for multiple products and providers allowing you to make one payment per month.

9. Consumerism.

Rather than an employer paying for a percentage of the cost of benefits, which is easily overlooked by employees, the employer contribution is displayed to the employee as an actual balance in their account. A fixed amount of money provided for the employee to choose to spend on the selection of benefits they choose. This reduces waste, as employees view this account balance as real dollars and will choose to spend it on the benefits that are most important to them. As a result, individuals are more involved in how the money is spent and will usually select products they are more likely to benefit from.

10. ACA Compliance Solutions.

Member Benefits is now offering a suite of Compliance Solutions to help employers navigate the new world of health care and benefits and comply with the complex provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In today’s rapidly changing environment, our tools are quickly and easily configurable and available on-demand, with numerous scheduling and alert options, to meet your specific business needs. Leverage our team of experts and fully automated tools for the ongoing support of your program and ACA compliance.

Contact Member Benefits at (800) 282-8626 for a demonstration, proposal, and comparison of how your traditional group health plan compares to the Private Health Exchange plans.