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  • Why Your Business Needs a Strong Group Health Plan Now

    Why Your Business Needs a Strong Group Health Plan Now

    In this recent article, we addressed the Employer Mandate, which requires that employers with over 50 fulltime employees offer a group medical insurance coverage plan. There are actually a lot of other benefits to offering your employees a group health insurance plan aside from the fact that you can avoid penalties if you don’t. Here are some of the benefits to consider.

    Hire Better Employees

    Over the last few years, insurance reform and massive changes to federal health care issues have made prospective employees much more concerned about health insurance issues. A company that has a rock solid group health insurance plan in place is more likely to attract more qualified employees and keep them onboard.

    Experience Significant Tax Benefits

    There are several significant tax benefits to providing health insurance to your employees and not just avoiding tax penalties. For instance, the premiums for your employees’ group medical insurance are 100% deductible. If your business is incorporated, then you can actually deduct 100% of what you pay for your own insurance as well.

    Be More Productive and Profitable in Business

    In most cases, a group health insurance plan offered to 50 or more employees is less expensive per individual than if those individuals were all to go out and get individual insurance coverage. Having a group health insurance plan means it is more affordable to work for you than for other companies, which ultimately will buy employee loyalty. It is not too much of a stretch to say that when you have more loyal employees working for you, your business will be more productive. When your business is more productive, the natural result is more profit.

    Have Healthier and Happier Employees

    According to a 2014 Gallup poll, one-third of all Americans have put off medical treatment because of healthcare costs. By offering a robust group medical insurance at your business, you are helping employees get the essential healthcare they and their families need. When your employees are healthy and happy, there will be increased employee morale and fewer sick days.

    These are just a few of the reasons why your business needs a strong group medical insurance plan in place. If you have any questions about the best health plan for your company and what features to include, give us a call to review your best options.

  • 5 Benefits of Outsourcing Benefits and Payroll

    5 Benefits of Outsourcing Benefits and Payroll

    Did you know that here at OMNI, we also offer payroll services? Maybe as a business owner or as an HR professional within your organization you have thought about outsourcing your payroll, and maybe you haven’t. However, with the volume of work and to-do lists that the average HR professional has going on at any given moment, there is really no reason not to make the payroll aspect of your life—what might seem like the biggest part of your life at times—a little bit more manageable. Here are some of the key benefits of outsourcing your payroll.

    It is incredibly convenient. There is no one in the world who does not like to save time. If you are still doing your own payroll, staying at work late at month end figuring out reports and measuring data, you’re doing it all wrong. There is an easier, more convenient way. All you have to do when you have a payroll service like ours working for you is deliver the hours, deductions, and the salaries of your employees and we take care of the processing and reporting. With our web-based system, the convenience doesn’t quit.

    Enjoy the functionality. Perhaps when you think of payroll you just think of payments going out to your employees. However, our service is much more than that. We provide you with management reports, can handle all the tax processing, filing, and paying, and can even prepare W2 forms for you. By choosing to outsource payments, you are choosing to make your business more functional and efficient.

    Stop worrying about mistakes. In business as with anywhere else, mistakes are often made. They are more likely to be made when a business owner is not current on all the new tax laws pertaining to payroll. You can count on a benefits service like ours to take care of all of the necessary reports and be aware and knowledgeable of any recent updates in tax regulations. You can rest easy at night knowing that we have it all taken care of. You have a lot of things to worry about. You deserve to let us worry about this.

    Stay in compliance. No matter how savvy you are with your money and taxes, as a business owner, you are likely busy enough with everything else you have going on that it’s hard to keep up with everything that you have to do. A benefits service is there to help you navigate the often complex maze of obligations, deadlines, and compliance while working to keep your employees happy.

  • The Employer Mandate FAQ – How compliant is your company health plan?

    Attention business owners: It is 2016 and you should have group health insurance coverage available to all of your fulltime employees. Beginning in 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act instituted the Employer Mandate, which basically states that large companies must offer their fulltime employees group health insurance. Here are some of the questions that we at OMNI hear most often regarding the Employer Mandate:

     

    What companies are considered “large”? Companies with over 50 fulltime or fulltime equivalent employees are considered large employers.

    How many hours is considered “fulltime”? An employee who works 30 or more hours per week or more than 130 hours each month is considered a fulltime employee under the Employer Mandate. There are few exceptions to this. For instance, seasonal employees are not eligible for fulltime status, and any hours that an employee worked overseas does not count towards their fulltime status either.

     

    What kind of coverage do you have to provide? As a large employer under the Employer Mandate, you will be required to offer the “minimum essential health coverage.” This coverage must be considered affordable and have a minimum value. In other words, if as an employer you are offering health coverage but your employees are still paying 60% or more of their medical expenses out of pocket, this coverage is likely not going to be considered adequate for purposes of this particular regulation.

    What if I don’t participate? There are two ways that an employer won’t participate in the Employer Mandate provisions requiring coverage for all of its fulltime employees. In the first, the employer does not offer coverage to all of its employees. In the second, the employer provides coverage that is deemed insufficient through affordability or the coverage is not valuable enough. Both scenarios do carry weighty penalties.

    What are the penalties for an employer not participating? In most cases, an employer that does not participate will pay a fee. In the event that an employer neglects to provide coverage at all, the penalty is $2,000 per year per employee. In a company with over 50 fulltime employees, it is not difficult to calculate. The penalty is significant. If the employer offers coverage but it is inadequate, the fee shoots up to $3,000 per year per employee.

    Who is eligible for coverage? Under the Employer Mandate, all employees and their dependents under 26 years old are eligible for health coverage under the company’s group health insurance plan.

    Of course, some of these questions really just make room for other questions. For instance:

    What is considered “affordable”? The government has different standards of affordability than you do and most businesses do as well so a standard needed to be set. Coverage is considered affordable as long as it is less than 9.5 of the employee’s household income.

    If you are an employer and have any questions about which of your employees are considered fulltime, whether your health plan is adequate to avoid penalty under the Employer Mandate, or just need someone to look over your coverage to ensure you are doing the best for your employees and getting the best products for your business, give us a call.

  • Silver plans managing health insurance premiums

    The insurance companies are implementing a strategy that will help lower health insurance premium increases over time, and their strategy is going to be tough to accept for the general public. This strategy is through silver plans, which give most of insured larger deductibles and cost sharing responsibilities. On the surface this enrages the average person who in the perfect world would have no deductible, or costs associated with going to the doctor. “Why would I pay for health insurance if I have to pay out-of-pocket when I go to the doctor” is the typical response when picking a plan. People have grown accustomed to this because it is the way it has always been, until recently. Well, insurance companies have figured out that this old system of low deductibles will not work long term if we want to keep health insurance costs reasonable. Insurance companies are now even pricing these silver plans to be enticing to the consumer. Fundamentally there is no way to avoid this initial outrage of the insured because it is change, which most people do not accept willingly.

    These actions are necessary for a couple of reason that will help ensure the stability in health insurance premiums.  One of these reasons is that if a person knows that they will have to pay for some of the costs when going to the doctor. Then they are less likely to see a doctor for ailments that can be treated without seeing a doctor. With a free or low cost doctors visit often times the patient will go see that doctor for an ailment that is minor and does not require a doctors services.

    The other is a more obvious reason, and that is if the plans were to remain the same with low deductible and low of pocket costs then the premiums would reach unaffordable levels. After all the medical costs we accrue as a nation are astronomical, and the money does need to come from somewhere. In saying that, this solution will actually decrease the spending that we create on medical services by deterring our overuse of going to the doctor. Insurance companies hire employees called actuaries to help determine these risks. What their actuaries have told them is that people with larger deductibles and cost sharing are less likely to see a doctor. In turn this helps the entire system that cannot afford for everyone to see a doctor for just a minor illness.

    Simply going to the doctor twice a year for a minor illness will use the entire premium paid by an average individual for an entire year. Let alone some of the much larger bills that will likely never be paid for by a person’s premiums. It’s not a matter of the insurance companies or Obamacare that is driving up healthcare costs. Instead it is the overuse of the healthcare system and how expensive going to the doctor has become as medical science has advanced. This is not because of insurance companies, but rather the costs of medical equipment and other related costs. Do you want to use a doctor that saves money by using less than adequate equipment or services? Or how about a doctor who is less qualified, and who offers discount rates because of his limited education?

    The vast majority want their cake, which is lower deductibles and copays, but they also want to have lower premiums for that coverage. When they realize that this is not possible they immediately look at Obamacare to blame. In actuality the entire system was heading for this train wreck long before because medical costs greatly outweigh the premiums that are paid in by health insurance premiums. Take just one patient who is in ICU and can quickly rack up 100’s of thousands of dollars in doctors’ bills. One of two things happens in this instance. They have medical insurance and pay far less in monthly premiums than their insurance had to pay out for hospital and doctor bills. The other option that happens all too often is the person is not medically insured and now has a bill that would likely never be paid in full by the patient. This can result in even more things that hurt our entire economy as whole, such as medical bankruptcy or unpaid doctors’ bills.

    The solution is to keep the monthly premiums for health insurance at a manageable cost but let the patient pay for the first portion of their coverage motivating them to not see the doctor unless it is truly necessary. Much like if we have car insurance and have a minor dent we do not make a claim because it will not only be covered under the deductible, but it will also higher our premium costs in the long run. I take this stance not to prove any one right or wrong, but rather to bring up a discussion that has a lot of give and takes with no one solution. Next time you are going over your health plan complaining that the coverage is not what it used to be take a step back and realize that at least you cannot be declined for health coverage and your plan will not run out of money when you need it the most.

    -Written by Timothy Hirsch, Omni Insurance Brokerage