We understand the complex employee benefits program compliance and administrative requirements you face as a large employer. Bestefits was designed to provide you with the level of consultation and resources of a large brokerage while maintaining the attention and flexibility of a small brokerage. We don’t force you to adopt the process that works best for us. Your needs drive our solutions, services and resources. Together, we will work to create the Best-Fit employee benefit program for your budget, your environment and your long-term goals.
Large Employers’ Greatest Employee Benefits Program Concerns
BUDGET
The majority of large employers offer an employee benefits program, primarily to full-time employees, as a tool to compete for new talent and to increase retention of their current workforce. Large employers that do not currently offer group medical insurance are hastened to reevaluate their current practices in light of Health Care Reform’s Employer Mandate requirements. Both groups of employers face dramatic changes to the cost of doing business and alteration of their strategic goals in response to the demands of PPACA, also known as Obamacare.
Prior to the implementation of PPACA, large employers that offered an employee benefits program struggled with rising medical insurance premiums and healthcare claims costs. Over the course of too many consecutive years, the average rate of increase has out-paced inflation and most other business operational costs. Following the passage of PPACA, in general, these costs continue to rise and include additional costs related to PPACA taxes and mandated plan benefit changes. While initiatives intended to reduce the cost of care are being put in place, it is still unclear what level of impact these initiatives will have and in what timeframe significant results will be realized.
Large employers that do not offer coverage to significantly all full-time employees must begin to offer coverage or suffer the Employer Mandate penalties that will apply in 2015 (2016 for employers with at least 50 and less than 100 full-time equivalent employees). It has been our experience that the large employers that don’t offer coverage have not done so for many reasons including slim profit margins, company stage and a workforce predominantly comprised of low-wage employees.
Bestefits has good news for all large employers! Our firm was designed in direct response to the need for a brokerage on the leading-edge of emerging strategies, new products and proprietary cost-saving tools. We help you to implement programs with various funding, contribution and design strategies that accomplish your budget goals while maintaining employee choice. Our Health Care Reform modeling tools will help you to assess the financial impact of the strategies you are most interested in considering so you can make informed decisions and determine the best-fit solution for your organization.
Budget solutions
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Benefit Minds
This is one of our most exciting and impactful benefit strategy and medical insurance cost-containment offerings to Bestefits clients. For those just learning more about us, this is the equivalent of having several of the top benefit strategists all working together on solutions for your organization. Learn more by scheduling a meeting to discuss your benefits insurance program
Health Care Reform Expertise
Bestefits can model the financial, administrative and legislative impact of this law on your organization, help you to minimize the cost of applying necessary changes and evaluate alternatives. Health Care Reform, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Affordable Care Act (ACA) and popularly called Obamacare, has many cost and administrative implications for employer-sponsored group medical insurance as well as other interacting group medical-related benefits. Combinations of existing and emerging strategies are creating many options for employers to consider. With Bestefits as your partner, you can objectively evaluate the implications of each solution and make confident decisions about the best course of action for your company.
Funding Strategies
We support a number of funding strategies including fully-insured, self-funding, partial self-funding and group captives. More employers are becoming intrigued by the benefits of self-funding which, not long ago, was considered to be a safe strategy only for enterprise organizations. The potential cost savings, access to detailed claims information, plan design customization, ability to directly benefit from claims reduction strategies and avoid certain State mandates can be highly appealing to employers that have been facing escalating healthcare costs.
As studies show an increase in the number of smaller self-funded organizations, Bestefits is beginning to see the simultaneous wave of movement in the opposite direction. Some mid-sized employers were intrigued by the presentation of potential cost savings and level of plan control but were not properly guided through an assessment to determine whether self-funding was appropriate for their organization. Some of these organizations ultimately experienced increases that surpassed the pooled market.
This is why Bestefits is a tremendously important partner in your assessment of the best funding strategy for your organization. We have a secret weapon to evaluate your risks and deliver an unmatched level of self-funding plan management.
Private And Public Exchange Options
Each company has unique needs and that is why Bestefits does not believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. While many employers are well-suited with direct-to-carrier product arrangements, other employers are intrigued by the defined contribution model that makes employer contribution costs more predictable and the number of carrier choices provided by public and private exchanges. If you are an employer who is interested in this strategy, we can help you with public exchange solutions, including Covered California’s SHOP exchange, as well as the Bestefits private exchange solution or other private exchange solutions, including CaliforniaChoice. (Please note that public exchange options are only be available up to 100 employees at the present time.)
Product Design
By working with Bestefits, you receive an objective review of all of the top-rated insurance carriers and products. We help you to evaluate a wealth of insurance products from Anthem, Aetna, Blue Shield, CIGNA, DeltaDental, The Guardian, HealthNet, Humana, Kaiser, Lincoln Financial, MetLife, Principal, The Standard, SeeChange, United Healthcare, Unum and many more! Many insurance products look alike. This often causes people to choose among a family of plans, based primarily on premium, only to later utilize the plan and experience surprising out-of-pocket costs. With our guidance, you will better understand the unique details of each plan so you can determine whether or not premium costs are outweighed by expenses not covered by the plan. As an employer, the number and combination of plans you offer to your employees has a great effect on their satisfaction and your bottom line. Bestefits works with you to create the benefits program menu that best suits your unique environment.
Negotiation
Effective negotiation with insurance carriers is accomplished by being a trusted broker who presents fresh ideas, provides thorough information for proper underwriting and brings quality clients. Our relationships allow us to work with quality carriers to create competitive rates for the benefits you value. Let us help you to enhance your employee benefits program with the lines of coverage that create a well-rounded offering and attract the employees you need to grow your business.
Contribution Strategy
Your contribution strategy is an important element of your overall employee benefits package. There are a number of different contribution solutions that help you to drive specific participation behavior, have different impacts on the predictability of your benefit spend and accomplish unique results. Bestefits provides you with various models of contribution strategies through private and public exchanges and direct-to-market solutions so that you are equipped to design a contribution methodology that accomplishes your program goals.
Cafeteria Plans
Not only do employee benefit insurance programs help you to attract and retain your valuable employees but they are an important vehicle for reducing your payroll tax liabilities. IRS code Section 125 plans are a great way to maximize these tax advantages. Premium Only Plans (P.O.P.) allow you to deduct employees’ portions of their premiums through payroll on a pre-tax basis. This reduces their taxable income and reduces your FICA and Worker’s Compensation expenses. Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA’s), Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA’s) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s) are popular Section 125 plan vehicles that can help you to reduce plan premiums while enhancing plan benefits. Bestefits educates your employees about these plans to drive engagement and participation. Employees save more money and you further reduce your payroll tax liability by encouraging their additional contributions to qualified plans.
COBRA Transition Services
COBRA participants tend to be less healthy, high claimants. The number of COBRA participants you have has an impact on rates, and is a factor that affects the quoted rates you receive from alternative carrier options. Bestefits supports communication with terminating employees to help them evaluate their healthcare options and positively impact your COBRA participation.
Bestefit Employee Benefit Communication
Bestefits excels in high impact employee benefit communication and will make your program into something you are truly proud of and your employees truly appreciate. We firmly believe that employee benefit communication about plan utilization, planning of non-emergency medical procedures and healthcare consumerism education will drive the long-term cost controls on healthcare expenditure that employers need to positively affect claims costs, risk pools and resulting rates. It is our philosophy that extra Bestefits time and resources spent in this area will contribute to a more stable industry as a whole and impact the stability of your program over the long-run.
Unbiased Wellness Program Evaluation
Wellness is a hot topic but multiple studies are showing differing program results. As experience with wellness programs evolves, more information will continue to be collected to determine the most effective initiatives and impactful ROI. During this time of extreme healthcare innovation, Bestefits believes it is not in our clients best interest to support only one wellness program vendor or one a proprietary wellness program. Many wellness companies are emerging with ground-breaking tools and valuable insights. Bestefits presents many wellness solutions that vary in cost and breadth of program so you may choose the best fit for your culture, budget, and administrative resources.
Ready to Contact Us?
We look forward to working with you to create the Best-Fit employee benefit program for your organization.
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Paul Achee
Phone: 805-290-1620
Paul Achee
Phone: 805-290-1620
ADMINISTRATIVE RESOURCES
It is no question that offering employee benefits is becoming increasingly complex and time-consuming. Human Resource professionals are demanding more help and support in this area because it is distracting from other imperative human capital management tasks and strategic operations. Most of the HR Executives we speak with express that it has been necessary to gain comprehensive insurance knowledge in order to address employee questions and the ever-changing legislation that governs benefit offerings. They would appreciate more support from benefits specialists so they can allocate time to important projects. Bestefits steps in to provide you with the resources you need in order to do more with less! We are appreciated by our large employer clients for being, not just a broker or business partner, but an integral part of their executive team and benefits department.
Administrative resources
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Bestefits Processing
Benefit plan administrators know that adding a benefit eligible employee or terminating a benefit participant means handling paperwork, logging into multiple systems and hoping you didn’t miss an important step. These processes can interrupt your day and take time that would be better spent elsewhere. Let Bestefits handle your new benefit eligible employee additions and terminations. You send us the information we need to make the change and we email you upon completion.
Carrier Communication Management
Although there are times when the employer must contact the insurance carrier with questions or issues, many questions and issues can be handled by Bestefits. This saves you precious time and provides security in knowing that an insurance professional is resolving your issue while you are working on more important things.
Employee Advocacy
Some employees have complicated benefits insurance questions, health circumstances they do not wish to disclose to their employer or claims issues that require additional support for resolution. Bestefits has found that by providing time for individual questions during Open Enrollment and describing our role in your benefits program, employees understand that we are their advocate for important insurance issues that must be escalated and are comfortable contacting us for help. This reduces the number office walk-ins and repetitive questions you handle on a daily basis.
Bestefit Employee Benefit Communication
Studies have consistently shown that, without effective and engaging employee benefit communication, employee populations perceive the value of their benefits to be far lesser than the true value. These studies also show that even a relatively slim benefits offering receives higher value ranking from employees of companies with a strong benefit communication strategy. We work with you to create a continuous communication strategy that works for your environment and enhances your employees’ perceptions of the time and money you spend providing for their health and well-being. Bestefits helps you to plan organized and informative Open Enrollment sessions, customized benefit brochures and on-going education to enhance engagement.
Tools & Technology
Although Health Care Reform (aka Obamacare) has created a lot of work and concern about compliance, it has also stirred some much needed innovation. More companies are bringing new solutions to the table to help automate many benefit processes and enrollment, store benefit information and deliver money-saving tools. Bestefits offers proprietary tools that address these needs and also helps employers to evaluate other tools and services in the marketplace. We support your adoption of the technology and services that best fit your needs and provide implementation support where appropriate.
COBRA Transition Services
This service helps to control your healthcare spend but it is also an important administrative support offering. Bestefits supports communication with terminating employees to help them evaluate their healthcare options and positively impact your COBRA participation. In addition, we will manage the COBRA system data entry to save more of your important time.
HR Advisors
This program provides direct phone and email support for nearly all human resource matters and employment issues, including Health Care Reform expertise. A wealth of answers to complicated HR questions are available through an online HR library and required employee training programs come in engaging formats. With this service, you have the power of highly responsive Fortune 500 team by your side at all times.
Team Coordination
The employee benefits program involves the operations of multiple teams in your organization and can include Human Resources, payroll, other finance departments, additional individuals on the executive team and the Board. We speak the language of each department to help make sure each team has the information they need to create a smoothly operating program. Bestefits is your benefit coordinator so you can focus on the needs of your department.
ACCESS TO EXPERTISE
As the administrative and legislative requirements of employee benefits programs continue to increase, it has become imperative to work with a new kind of consultant. The new generation of Benefits Consultants must have a greater understanding of the many areas of your business impacted by the benefits program and be better able to suggest the solutions that best fit your unique needs.
Bestefits is dedicated to extensive Health Care Reform knowledge and making it easier for you to apply necessary changes in required timeframes. In addition, some evaluations may determine that non-compliance of certain provisions and their applicable penalties make better sense for your company and your employees than full compliance with all provisions of the law.
Beyond Obamacare, benefits have complicated tax, payroll, recruitment and retention, organizational development and strategic planning implications and involve multiple departments. We don’t come to the table as just your benefits broker. We bring a wealth of expertise about the interactions of this program on your long-term goals so your benefits program and Bestefits become an integral part of your success.
Access to expertise
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Health Care Reform Specialization
Health Care Reform expertise provides us with the training and knowledge to help you implement the numerous requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), understand compliance deadlines and model the financial impact of these changes on your organization. We enjoy helping to make the complex regulations that effect your benefits program easier to understand and easier to manage. Bestefits places professional certifications and continued education among its core values. We believe that by remaining dedicated to expanding our professional development, we can continue to deliver top-of-industry excellence to clients who have come to need a higher level of consulting and guidance in today’s economic and legislative environment.
Benefit Minds
It’s no question that the employee benefits program touches many important elements of your business and is more complex now than ever before. We know it’s a wonderful thing to have a broker with strong insurance knowledge but wouldn’t it be even better to have a group of the top benefit minds working together on your program? The benefits program has an enormous impact on multiple complicated areas of your business, each requiring specialization, including tax implications, legislative compliance, financial modeling, contribution strategies, payroll/HR systems, employee recruitment & retention and more. Benefit Minds focuses top mind power on your issues to create your best-fit solutions. In addition, we have gathered a group of incredible partners who bring a whole new level of impact to your benefit program by connecting the dots to the strategic goals of your organization and perpetuation.
Benefits Compliance Expertise
Employers who offer employee benefits are pushed and pulled between Federal and State Government regulations, scrutinized by the DOL, HHS, IRS, and must navigate an overwhelming number of laws including PPACA, HIPAA, COBRA, DOMA, GINA, FMLA and more. The amount of change and liability is undoubtedly increasing. Many executives feel that they are spending more time learning about and responding to the changing legislation that affects the viability of their organization than accomplishing the tasks that bring in revenue. Bestefits provides benefit administration support to act as an extension of your benefit team and provides direction to help you respond to the legislative requirements that apply to your company.
Consultant Partner Network
Some employers find themselves reinventing their company, acquiring a new organization, expanding into a new market and many other exciting ventures. These projects require bringing the top minds in your organization together with outside consultants. We can introduce a collaborative strategy tool that allows your team’s ideas to flow and assign the tasks necessary to execute your vision. Consultant partners can be introduced to aid in the organizational development strategies that will be needed along the way so you have the right plan from the start and the brains needed to get to the finish line.
COMPANY CULTURE
Your company culture is a unique and important part of your employment brand. Large employers have a dynamic culture of employees who work in different departments and perform dramatically different roles. They are from different generations, speak different languages, have differing levels of education and different cultural backgrounds; but they all come together to take part in the united mission of your organization. We support your goal to care for all of them in the way that is most effective based on their needs. This is why Bestefits serves as your objective consultant. We represent all of the available options and work with you to create the comprehensive program and design specifics that best-fit your organizational goals and dynamic employee population. We don’t believe in proprietary sales processes designed to accomplish our sales goals. Your needs drive our process, services and resources from start to finish.
Company culture
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Employee Benefit Survey
Many employers have been pleasantly surprised by the results of employee benefit surveys. Instead of the initial anticipation of employee demand for the most comprehensive and expensive benefit plans available on the market, results generally show most employees want a reasonable amount of choice and additional low cost benefits that result in greatly enhanced overall value. These customized surveys give you the information you need before evaluating changes so that you can get closer to bulls-eye for your budget and your employees.
Part-Time Employee Programs
The part-time workforce is important for accomplishing many of the imperative organizational tasks that don’t justify a full-time position or where the budget won’t accommodate the full-time cost. Turnover is often higher in the part-time workforce because they are commonly on the search for full-time employment or higher wages. Many employers would offer benefits and additional services to this class of employees to reduce the rate of turnover if the cost was not prohibitive.
In addition to the medical insurance options and subsidies now available to low-income individuals, a number of other highly valuable benefits can be offered to the part-time workforce at little or no cost to your organization. Without this, these employees have difficulty finding the level of professionalism and advocacy they need to understand the options available to them and their families. Let us help you to give these employees a new experience and show them that they are more than just the hours they put in. It will certainly set your place of employment apart from other part-time positions.
Direct Employee Advocacy
Our team is available for individual employee questions during Open Enrollment and throughout the year. It is a great enhancement to their enrollment experience and helps to alleviate many of the questions directed to your Human Resource team. Employees of Bestefits clients know who we are and know that we are there to help them with the complex benefits insurance issues that are not easily solved over the phone or through email with the insurance carrier. We provide advocacy for their complex claims issues so they have the right people on their side when they need it most.
Customized Benefit Communication
From Open Enrollment Announcements to mid-year benefit education and wellness notices, we customize the benefit communication materials that drive an entirely different level of employee engagement. These materials help to prepare employees for benefit changes, educate them on benefit choices that will save them money and positively impact your plan. We provide wellness information to support healthy choices and remind them of the effort you put into caring for their health and well-being. You will be surprised at the responses you receive from your employees and the level of satisfaction they report.
Creating Choice
Bestefits work with you to determine the right program choices for your employment environment. Narrowing selections to those that best-fit your environment but leaving room for choice allows you to protect the overall cost of your benefits program while still creating the right amount of flexibility for your employees. Our clients have access to multiple options for accomplishing this goal and addressing the needs of different employees groups, whether they are drivers on the road or in-office employees.
COMPLIANCE SUPPORT
With Bestefits, compliance support is at your side at all times. We have the experience, expertise and energy to give you timely, relevant answers to your pressing benefit and employment related issues. With our guidance and additional compliance resources, clients have access to the information that allows them to take informed action to stay in compliance, reduce risk and avoid penalties.
Compliance support
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Additional Compliance Resources
Bestefits has access to a number of compliance resources that allow us to be a great first-stop for many of your employment-related compliance questions. Employee handbook templates, sample notices and guidance on employment-related procedures are available for your use. For more complicated issues, where legal advice or specialized consulting is needed, you may access our trusted advisor network.
Compliance Reviews
Bestefits will conduct a compliance review of your current program and provide recommended changes as well as their likely administrative and financial impact. On an on-going basis, Bestefits clients receive compliance information to guide their current programs and plan for future changes. With Bestefits you can feel confident that you have a brokerage that is helping you to protect against the compliance risks of your benefit program.
Compliance Checklist
A good checklist was responsible for a safe landing in the Hudson River, saving 155 lives. Bestefits provides you with a compliance checklist that keeps your benefits program alive so you can keep caring for the lives of your employees and their families. Simplifying the complex requirements of your program is one of our primary goals and ensures that you are able to focus on other important objectives.
Ready to Contact Us?
Complete the form to tell us more about your company and we will contact you.