September 25, 2023
In what is a regular occurrence between health systems and insurance carriers, Anthem, Inc. and UC Health, including UCLA Health, have yet to reach a contract agreement for 2024. As things stand today, Anthem members would lose UC Health Systems as in-network providers effective January 1, 2024, including health systems such as: UC Los Angeles UC San Diego …
September 13, 2023
In recent years, the healthcare industry has made significant strides toward providing more equitable care for all individuals. However, disparities in healthcare outcomes still persist, particularly for people of color and black communities. Just look at recent news about a difficult pregnancy for Serena Williams and the prepartum death of Torie Bowie for proof. “Black …
August 28, 2023
Leadership and HR teams can take their benefits to the next level when they begin strategically planning their benefits rather than just buying insurance every renewal cycle. And in order to think strategically with benefits, companies need to review an Employee Benefits Benchmark for their organization. What is an Employee Benefits Benchmark? An Employee Benefits …
August 15, 2023
Health insurance and benefits are often an untapped source of value creation for entrepreneurs, private equity professionals, and investors. Entrepreneurs and private equity companies are in the business of creating value. This generally means they manage their companies in a way to increase revenue, decrease costs, and generally increase their value. Since a business increases …
August 1, 2023
Companies offer employee benefits to retain and recruit their workforce. Benefits reflect your values as an organization and company, and more and more employees today value what their company stands for, not just what they are paid. Poor benefits can result in higher attrition, a waste of business cash flow, and hurt the company in …
May 2, 2023
You are probably familiar with voluntary benefits – if you’ve watched a sports game or turned on the TV recently, you’ve probably seen an ad from Aflac, Allstate, and others. But you may not be familiar with how these plans are financed exactly. And if you’re a real finance and insurance nerd who is familiar …
April 4, 2023
We work with employers who use a variety of funding methods for their employee benefit plans. Some groups may use fully-insured health insurance plans from carriers, and others may self-fund their employee health plans with stop-loss insurance and captive managers. We work with groups in and out of California, and it’s interesting to see state …
March 22, 2023
We sometimes hear Captive Insurance and Self-Funding used interchangeably, but they are in fact two separate employee benefits strategies. Let’s explore how are they similar and how are they different. Captives and Self-Funding are not Fully-Insured To begin, let’s be clear that both of these strategies are an alternative to a Fully-Insured Health Plan. With a …
March 7, 2023
We look at a number of strategies to help employers lower their health insurance costs. One of these are Spousal Surcharges and Spousal Carve-outs. Let’s explore each of these in greater detail and as always, you can schedule a complimentary call with an advisor to discuss these in greater detail. A Spousal Surcharge increases the employee contribution to …
February 7, 2023
Employers are facing unsustainable cost increases For many companies, healthcare costs including health insurance have become a top expense. It often goes payroll first, then healthcare benefits. It’s not uncommon for many employers today to face healthcare costs of $8,000 or more per year per employee. And healthcare costs have been steadily increasing, increasing 152 …
