New York nonprofit abandons traditional fully-insured health plan design to reduce employer-sponsored health insurance premiums and improve benefits through first-dollar coverage.
NEW YORK, June 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --
In the midst of a global pandemic, New York nonprofit East Harlem Council for Human Services, Inc. reduced their annual employee health benefits spend by more than $230,000 by transitioning from a traditional fully-insured health plan to the Nonstop Wellness program. Nonstop Wellness is a proprietary employer-sponsored health insurance product that combines an ACA-approved high deductible health plan (HDHP) with a Medical Expense Reimbursement Program (MERP), which eliminates or reduces employee out-of-pocket costs. In addition to significantly reducing their employee health benefits premiums, East Harlem Council for Human Services, Inc. was also able to reduce employee contributions to premiums and design a health plan that promotes access to primary care with robust first-dollar coverage for all in-network covered services.
"What's been the most rewarding for me is telling our employees that they no longer have to fear costs for in-network covered services. That makes a huge impact in our employees' lives. I've been getting emails from our employees thanking me for Nonstop Wellness since we enrolled in the program," said Angie Rodriguez (MS-HRD), East Harlem Council for Human Services' Director of Human Resources. "The immediate savings also allowed us to bring back employees who were furloughed because of the COVID-19 crisis."
East Harlem Council for Human Services joins a growing number of nonprofits nationwide deserting the traditional fully-insured model of health insurance for alternative plan designs to control employee health insurance costs without slashing benefits. Even before COVID, the cost of keeping employees equitably insured had been racing towards unsustainable. Today, there is a new sense of urgency to address how to make healthcare affordable for the employer and employee.
"COVID-19 has taught us that employer-sponsored healthcare isn't just about total rewards, employee retention, or organizational growth. Radically rethinking employer-sponsored health benefits in the coming months and years will be essential to economic stability, individual physical, mental and financial wellness—and indeed—human lives," said David Sloves, CEO of Nonstop Administration & Insurance Services, Inc.
Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/east-harlem-council-for-human-services-inc-stomps-down-annual-employee-health-insurance-bill-34-301079361.html?tc=eml_cleartime
