news
Idaho Department Of Insurance Cannot Predict Ongoing Cost Of Health Exchange
Nov 2011 – The Idaho Reporter (11/18, Hurst) reports that at yesterday's "meeting of the Idaho Health Care Task Force...Idaho Department of Insurance Director Bill Deal told lawmakers that he doesn't know how much it will cost to run a state-based insurance exchange.
Healthcare Reform – Individual Mandate Health Insurance
July 2010 – Effective January 1st, 2014, "applicable individuals" will be required to maintain "minimum essential coverage" for themselves and their dependents. "Applicable individuals" who fail to maintain "minimum essential coverage" will be required to pay a "penalty" on their tax return.
NIHN Prescription Assistance Program
October 2009 – Working to optimize health and promoting solutions designed to achieve high quality, cost-effective health care, North Idaho Health Network is partnering with MEDPro ( a corporate affiliate of Design Benefits) to add a Prescription Assistance Program to the services they offer their 270 member physicians and five member hospitals in the five Northern Counties of Idaho.
Advantages for Employer and Employee
| Benefit | Employer | Employees |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Entirely owned by the employee thereby promoting employee involvement and accountability in purchasing healthcare services. |
Can decide how much money (up to certain limits) to contribute each year. Can take entire account balance with them if they move, change jobs or enroll in a new health plan. |
| Flexibility |
Ability for both employer and employee to contribute. More flexible than other tax-advantage accounts, such as Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). |
Can use money in an HSA to pay for a variety of healthcare related expenses. Choice to pay healthcare expenses from the account or save dollars for future use. Unused HSA balance will roll over from year to year and grows tax – free. No “use it or lose it” limits apply. |
| Affordability |
Reduces or controls your organization’s spending on healthcare benefits. Offers a more affordable plan may result in higher employee participation rate. Allows for employer contributions. Can be a healthy incentive for increasing employee interest and participation in the high- deductible health plan and HSA. Reduces organization expenditures on retiree health. |
Works in conjunction with health insurance providers high deductible health plan, which usually has lower premiums than health insurance with lower deductibles. There are no fees for investment allocations or changes. Nominal monthly administrative fee for each HSA can be paid by employee, employer or both. |
| Long-term savings | Empowers employees to save for future healthcare expenses. | The Design Benefits HSA offers both an FDIC – insured, interest bearing deposit account plus the option to direct funds in to preselected investment once the minimum balance has been met in the deposit account. Contributions, interest and investment gains accumulating over the years can be used tax-free for qualified healthcare expenses later. |
| Investment choice | Design Benefits offers high – quality and reputable investment options to employees that meet a minimum balance requirement in their HSA. | Design Benefits offers six HSA mutual fund options to accommodate a range of investment objectives. |
| Convenience | Management of Design Benefits of the entire HSA benefit process thereby eliminating the need for your management and involvement. | Since Design Benefits administers the HSA deposit account and offers mutual funds, employees can manage both components of the HSA all in one place. The Design Benefits Health Savings Account card is a convenient debit card that reduces need for out – of – pocket expenses and reimbursement. |
| Tax savings |
Saves on Social Security and Medicare taxes by offering pretax payroll deductions for employees to contribute to HSAs. For employees who earn less than Social Security wage base, payroll tax savings are 7.65 percent of their contribution; for those over the wage base, savings are 1.45 percent. |
Saves on Social Security and Medicare taxes by making pretax contributions through payroll deduction. All contributions (including employer contributions) earnings and eligible withdraws are tax-free. Can deduct personal HSA contributions (not employers) on federal return, even if they don’t itemize deductions. Do not pay taxes on withdraws as long as they are used to pay for qualified healthcare expenses. |
Design Benefits is a leading, national employee benefits firm and a provider of Third Party Administration (TPA) services.
We offer healthcare, disability and life programs, prescription assistance programs, wellness, as well as Retirement Planning and Services. Through an advanced innovative web-based platform called Virtual Benefits Administration System (Vbas®) clients are offered a menu of services that help streamline the administration processes for efficient data management. We also offer the latest in online technology to help facilitate online benefit administration.
Home > Divisions > Health Savings Accounts > Advantages for Employer and Employee
© 2005-2012 Design Benefits. All rights reserved. Contact: info@designbenefitsonline.com