Consumer Driven Health Plans

The term, Consumer Driven Health Plans, has been gaining a lot of momentum over the last couple of years with the cost of health insurance premiums spiraling out of control. There's been discussion for some time in small business circles about shifting more of the responsibility for health care needs to the employees rather the employer. Business owners of all walks of life are quickly coming to the realization that they are ill-equipped to manage and administer the complexities of employee benefit plans. Aside from that, they also know that the days of low deductible health plans are all but a thing of the past. The premiums for these low deductible plans are chocking them financially. The biggest, and maybe, the only way to make a significant impact on health insurance premiums, is raising the deductible thresholds that employees are responsible for meeting before the plan covers expenses. Many employers are reluctant to pursue this necessary strategy to get a handle on their cost but it's completely unavoidable in today's economy.

So, it begs the question. What can an employer do to lessen the impact of employees being responsible for meeting higher deductibles? The answer is; doing it in conjunction with a Health Savings Account(HSA) for each of their employees. Each employee has this HSA set-up in their name for the purpose of making tax-free contributions into their account to ultimately cover the qualified medical expenses they're now responsible for with a High Deductible Health Plan. This gives the employee greater control and flexibility over making their own health care decisions. The IRS regulates the type of health plans that qualify for an HSA, as well as, how much money the employee can contribute to their HSA's.

Whether, it's the increasing trend toward higher health care premiums or the Federal and State regulations (COBRA and Mini-COBRA) of certain health plans - business owners are now faced with the very real task of shifting the responsibility for health care to the employees. Experts predict that Consumer-Driven Health Plan enrollment will spike in 2010 Read Full Article

For more information on Consumer Driven Health Plans, HSA's or how to effectively shift more of the burden for health care to your employees, email me at bknauss@employeemployersolutions.com visit us on the web at www.employeemployersolutions.com or twitter me at http://twitter.com/mployebenefits