Offering a traditional group health plan can be difficult to manage with the yearly increases in health care and premium costs. By coupling the group health plan with an Integrated HRA, it can help bridge the gap between offering a group health plan and minimizing premium costs while helping to suppress the yearly increases associated with traditional forms of health care. The Integrated HRA does not replace, it enhances a company’s group health plan.
The BASE® Integrated Health Reimbursement Arrangement is available to employers with a group health plan in place and who are looking to reduce the overall cost of their health insurance coverage. The Integrated HRA is an employer-paid reimbursement program designed to assist employees with medical expenses. It is a tax-free reimbursement method for employers that want greater control over their health benefit cost, to help employees pay for their health care costs not covered by the group health plan.
Not only does the Integrated HRA reduce an employers group health premium increases by 10-50%, but it also reduces the overall cost of the group health plan for its employees. The employer funds part of the employee’s deductible after the employee’s portion has been met through the HRA. The business selects, and maintains, a group health plan with lower premiums (with a higher deductible) and partially insures a portion of the employees’ costs.
With the BASE® Integrated HRA, employers have control over their benefit costs by setting a reimbursement allowance for each employee to use each month toward out-of-pocket medical expenses, further supplementing the group health plan. The Integrated HRA makes a group health plan more appealing and can help the employer attract and maintain employees. Aside from salary, health benefits are a top consideration a potential employee makes before accepting a job offer. With the BASE® Integrated HRA, employers will have the peace of mind knowing that their plan is in compliance.
Molly V., a BASE® Integrated HRA client, knew that with the 38% increase in their health insurance premiums they needed to make a change to help keep their group health plan affordable for their employees. After researching, they found various insurance options, but most of the plans in their price range had significantly less coverage than they were used to.
“Our company was lucky enough to have an agent who kept looking for better options for us, and he introduced us to the idea of a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). This is how we learned about BASE® who explained how we could reduce our premiums without reducing coverage.”
By coupling the BASE® Integrated HRA they were able to reduce their premium increases by 50%. “We are very pleased that we have been able to keep our health insurance premiums affordable for our employees and our company by capitalizing on the benefits that the HRA can provide.”
The Integrated HRA does not replace the group health plan but works with it to help cover the medical costs not covered by the group health plan. Let BASE® help bridge the gap between your group health plan and premium costs, saving thousands of valuable tax dollars each year with the Integrated HRA. Call BASE® at 888-386-9680 or visit www.BASEonline.com for more information!
Health care costs increase yearly at an average rate of 5.5% (cms.gov). Every business feels it, but certainly more than anyone is the small business with 50 or fewer employees. So, what can a small business owner do if they want to provide their employees with health care coverage, but cannot afford to? Set up a Qualified Small Employer HRA (QSEHRA).
The BASE® Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA) allows small employers with less than 50 full-time employees to set aside a fixed amount of money each month, tax-free, that employees, who maintain Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC), can use to purchase their individual health insurance or use on out-of-pocket health care.
With the help of BASE®, employers can be assured they have a compliant benefit option when offering a group health plan is not an option. Plus, employees will know how much they will have available to them for reimbursement of qualified medical expenses. BASE® makes enrolling in the QSEHRA simple and helps save thousands in valuable tax dollars. How it works is simple:
- Design the Plan – the employer chooses the limit on how much to reimburse their employees and what kind of health care expenses, such as insurance premiums and qualified health care expenses to reimburse. For 2020, the maximum contribution limits for self-only are $5,250 and for family are $10,600.
- Employee Pays for Health Care – employees pay for health insurance and out-of-pocket health care costs, then submit for reimbursement.
- Employer Reimbursement – once submitted and substantiated, the employer reimburses up to the maximum contribution based on what they established.
The BASE® QSEHRA not only benefits the employer, but the employee and their dependents as well. The employer is able to retain and attract employees with an increased benefits package, deduct all reimbursements as a business deduction, establish better control of funding limits, and have peace of mind knowing that all legal and administrative concerns are taken care of by BASE®. The employee now has additional money each month to help with the rising costs of their health care, realize more take-home pay with reimbursements as non-taxable income, and have an easy, and convenient, way to pay for their health care expenses.
Stacey Davis, a BASE® Sales Representative gets to talk to a lot of businesses interested in the QSEHRA and finds that it is a great fit for smaller business owners, such as mom & pop stores, and business owners with up to 49 employees. Stacey reminds employers that employees must have Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) to qualify but can be covered by their spouse’s employer and still get reimbursed for their health care expenses. A great point is that all expenses reimbursed to the employee are 100% tax deductible through the business and helps to save the employer on payroll taxes.
At the end of the day, there are so many reasons as to why a small business owner would want to enroll in the BASE® QSEHRA. The top 2 reasons? 1) the employer is no longer able to provide a group health plan due to cost, and 2) the employer wants to offer their employer a means of paying for out-of-pocket health care spending.
For more information on the QSEHRA and how it can save a business owner thousands in valuable tax dollars while still providing an attractive, and competitive, benefits package, call BASE® at 888-386-9680 or visit www.BASEonline.com.
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