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New Rules Allow Employers to Reimburse for Health Premiums

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Starting Jan. 1, 2020, employers can establish accounts for their employees to help them pay for individual health insurance policies they purchase, as well as for other health care expenses.

A new regulation expands on how health reimbursement accounts can be used. Currently, employers and their workers can contribute to these accounts, which can be used to reimburse workers for out-of-pocket medical expenses.

With these new Individual Coverage HRAs, employers can fund the account workers would use to pay for health insurance premiums for coverage that they secure on their own.

Up until this new regulation, such arrangements were prohibited by the Affordable Care Act under the threat of sizeable fines in excess of $36,000 per employee per year.

This rule is the result of legislation signed into law by President Obama in December 2016, which created the “qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangement (QSEHRA),” which would allow small employers to reimburse for individual insurance under strict guidelines.

The Trump administration was tasked with writing the regulations, which created the Individual Coverage HRA (ICHRA).

How it works

Under the new rule, if an employer is funding an ICHRA, the plan an employee chooses must be ACA-compliant, meaning it must include coverage for the 10 essential benefits with no lifetime or annual benefit maximums — and must adhere to the consumer protections built into the law.

Once the ICHRA is created, the employer will a set amount every month into the account on a pre-tax basis, which the employee can then use to buy or supplement their purchase of health insurance benefits in the individual market.

The law allows employers to set up as many as 11 different classes of employees for the purposes of distributing funds to ICHRAs. The employer can vary how much they give to each different group. For example, one class may get $600 a month per single employee with no dependents, while members of another class may receive $400 a month.

The allowable classes are:

Full-time employees — For the purposes of satisfying the employer mandate, that means a worker who averages 30 or more hours per week.

Part-time employees — Like the above, the employer can choose how to define what part-time is.

Seasonal employees — Workers hired for short-term positions, usually during particularly busy periods.

Temps who work for a staffing firm — These employees provide temporary services for the business, but are formally employed through a staffing firm.

Salaried employees — Staff who have a have a fixed annual salary and are not typically paid overtime.

Hourly employees — Staff who are paid on an hourly basis and can earn overtime.

Employees covered under a collective bargaining agreement — Employees who are members of a labor union that has a contract with the employer.

Employees in a waiting period — This class would include workers who were recently hired and are in their waiting period before they can receive health benefits (in many companies, this is 90 days).

Foreign employees who work abroad — These employees work outside of the U.S.

Employees in different locations, based on rating areas — These employees live outside the individual health insurance rating area of the business’s physical address.

A combination of two or more of the above — Businesses can also create additional classes by combining two or more of the above classes.

The rules for ICHRAs are as follows:

  • Any employee covered by the ICHRA must be enrolled in health insurance coverage purchased in the individual market, and must verify that they have such coverage (as mentioned above, that coverage must be ACA-compliant);
  • The employer may not offer the same class of workers both an ICHRA and a traditional group health plan;
  • The employer must offer the ICHRA on the same terms to all employees in a class;
  • Employees must be allowed to opt out of receiving an ICHRA;
  • Employers must provide detailed information to employees on how the ICHRA works;
  • Employers may not create a class of employees younger than 25, whom they might want to keep in their group plan because they’re healthier;
  • A class cannot have less than 10 employees in companies with fewer than 100 workers. For employers with 100 to 200 employees, the minimum class size is 10% of the workforce, while for employers with 200 or more staff, the minimum size is 20 employees;
  • While benefits must be distributed fairly to employees that fall within each class, each class can be broken down further by age and family size. That means employees with families can be offered a higher amount per month and rates can be scaled by age.

Many Employees Choosing the Wrong Health Plans

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A new study has found that many people in employer-sponsored health plans are enrolling in plans that are costing them more than they ought to be paying.

Many employees choose pricey plans with low deductibles, which force them to spend more up front on premiums to save just a few hundred dollars on their deductible. As result, many employees are spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more on their health care/health coverage than they need to.

A study by Benjamin Handel, a U.C. Berkeley economics professor, found that the majority of employees at one company he studied were in the highest-premium, lowest-deductible plan ($250 a year) their employer offered. This resulted in them spending about $4,500 a year on health care, compared to only $2,032 had they gone with the cheaper plan (which had a $500 annual deductible) and received exactly the same care.

Additionally, the research paper “Choose to Lose: Health Plan Choices from a Menu with Dominated Options,” published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that more choices also didn’t yield more savings for individuals in employer-sponsored plans.

The study examined the health plan choices that 23,894 employees at one large U.S. employer made. They were able to choose from 48 different combinations of deductibles, pharmaceutical copayments, co-insurance and maximum out-of-pocket expenses. All of the plans offered the same network of doctors and hospitals.

As a result, workers paid an extra $528 in premiums for the year to keep their deductible at $750 instead of $1,000. In other words, they paid $528 to save $250.

For nearly every plan with a deductible of $1,000 (the highest deductible available for those seeking single coverage), the additional premiums required to reduce the deductible, with all other plan attributes fixed, exceeded the maximum possible out-of-pocket savings provided by the lower deductible.

The study also found that the lowest-paid workers were significantly more likely to choose dominated plans (the most expensive).

Both of the studies above looked at plan options with relatively low deductibles when compared with high-deductible health plans, which have become more popular with time.

In 2018, the minimum deductible for an HDHP is $1,350 for an individual and $2,700 for a family. But, under current regulations, total out-of-pocket expenses are limited to $6,650 for an individual and $13,300 for a family with a HDHP.

While these plans have gotten a bad rap lately, a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found they are often cheaper for employees, as well.

The authors, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found in a study of 331 companies, that at firms offering both a HDHP and a low-deductible plan, selecting the HDHP typically saves more than $500 a year.

Strategies

To help offset the cost of a HDHP, you can offer your staff health savings accounts (HSAs), which offer a tax-advantaged way to save for health care costs. While there are annual contribution limits, HSAs allow your employees to roll over their balance from year to year. The funds they contribute to their HSA are pre-tax, so the savings are significant.

The Wisconsin-Madison authors surmised that many people choose the costlier health plan for two reasons:

  • Inertia – It’s easier for consumers to stick with their old plan rather than crunch the numbers to see if a new plan may be more appropriate.
  • Deductible aversion – When employees see a low-deductible plan they may associate it with better quality care, even though the network and coverage may be the same.

The best strategy to guide your staff to the plan that best suits them is to educate them. You should have workshops for your staff prior to open enrollment, to help them understand why the higher-deductible plan may often be the best choice for them if they want to save money on their overall premium and out-of-pocket expenses.

Ideally, you could encourage them to set aside the same amount of money in their HSA that would be enough to cover their deductible. This way, your employees would not feel burdened by health expenses they may have to pay for during the year.

Small Employers Can Reimburse for Medicare Part B, D Premiums

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As the workforce ages and many employers want to keep on baby-boomer staff who have the experience and institutional knowledge that is irreplaceable, one issue that always comes up is how to handle health insurance.

Once your older workers reach the age of eligibility for Medicare, under current law you can help them pay for Part B and D premiums with a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement. These types of arrangements became legal after legislation was signed into law in 2013 to help employers provide benefits to their Medicare-eligible staff.

But the issue surfaced again recently when the Trump administration came out with new guidance for health reimbursement arrangements that paves the way for employers to set up HRAs to reimburse staff for health premiums in their personal (not company group) health plans.

Anybody who is about to turn 65 has a six-month period to sign up for basic Medicare, but if they want additional coverage they can pay for Medicare supplemental coverage such as Parts B and D.

Part B covers two types of services:

Medically necessary services: Services or supplies that are needed to diagnose or treat your medical condition and that meet accepted standards of medical practice.

Preventive services: Health care to prevent illness (like the flu) or detect it at an early stage, when treatment is most likely to work best.

Part D, meanwhile, covers prescription drug costs.

The dilemma for employers has often been whether to keep the Medicare-eligible employee on the company health plan or cut them free on Medicare.

Smaller employers – those with 20 full-time-equivalent employees – have the option to open a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement for those employees if they are coming off a group health plan and into Medicare.

For small employers, it’s legal to set up an arrangement like that, as long as doing so is at the employee’s discretion. Employers are not allowed to push an employee into a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement in order to get them off the company’s health plan.

The good news for employers is that they often can reimburse their employees in full for Part B and D, as well as Medicare Supplement, and still pay less than they would pay in group employee premiums alone. 

On top of that, the employee gets a lower deductible and overall out-of-pocket experience with less, if any, premium contribution.  

What you need to know

Here’s what you should know if you’re considering one of these arrangements:

A Medicare reimbursement arrangement is one where the employer reimburses some or all of Medicare part B or D premiums for employees, as long as the employer’s payment plan is integrated with the group’s health plan.

To be integrated with the group health plan:

  • The employer must offer a minimum-value group health plan,
  • The employee must be enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B,
  • The plan must only available to employees enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B, or D, and
  • The reimbursement is limited to Medicare Parts B or D, including Medigap premiums.

Note: Certain employers are subject to Medicare Secondary Payer rules that prohibit incentives to the Medicare-eligible population.

As Drug Prices Skyrocket, This Top 10 List Will Shock You

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It’s no secret that the cost of pharmaceuticals is going through the roof. You’ve heard the stories of price-gouging by some companies that have jacked up prices thousands of percent.

Drug costs are starting to weigh heavily on the cost of care, in turn driving up health insurance premiums, which individuals, employees and employers are all feeling. The cost of some medications is so extreme that a single dose may far surpass the total premium paid for coverage.

Also, most people never really know the true price of a drug unless they are 100% on the hook for medications under their health plan. Often, you may have a copay that may differ depending on the type of drug, so people usually only see what they pay. However, every year more people are on the hook for the price of their drug due to high-deductible insurance plans and formulary changes.

The website Goodrx.com, a service for comparing and locating the best prescription prices, publishes a list every year of the most expensive drugs in the country.

While few individuals will pay these full amounts, some do because of their poor choice of health plans (like ones that saddle them with 100% of drug costs) or because they have been placed in a high-deductible health plan. The following is the top 10 list, in reverse order, of monthly prices that are set by the drug companies and known as the wholesale acquisition cost:

  1. Cuprimine – $31,426

Cuprimine removes copper build-up caused by Wilson’s disease. Patients take one capsule of Cuprimine after every meal. The list price is $261.89 per pill.

  1. Harvoni – $31,500

Harvoni is the first, once-daily combination drug used to treat Hepatitis C. Patients usually take it for 12 weeks. The cost per tablet: $1,125.

  1. Firazyr – $32,468.40

Firazyr is an injectable medicine used after an attack of hereditary angioedema. The typical patient suffers two to four attacks per month. A pack of three syringes costs $32,468.

  1. Juxtapid – $36,992

Juxtapid is used to treat people with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, a gene mutation that leads to cardiovascular disease. The dosage is about one day. The cost per capsule: $1,321.

  1. H.P. Acthar – $38,892

Also referred to as Acthar, this medicine is used to treat multiple conditions, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, infantile spasms, ophthalmic conditions, and psoriatic arthritis. The dosage is one vial a month, which costs $38,892 (for perspective, a vial cost $40.17 in 2001 and the price shot up after a new manufacturer took over).

  1. Myalept – $42,137

Myalept is used to treat leptin deficiency in patients with generalized lipodystrophy. Myalept is self-administered once a day in measured doses from vials, each one of which lasts about three days. The cost per vial: $4,213.

  1. Chenodal – $42,570

Chenodal is used to dissolve gallstones. Dosing varies and pills are manufactured at different strengths. Sadly, while this medicine is off-patent, which means that other manufacturers could legally produce generics, Chenodal is protected under what is referred to as a “closed distribution system.” That prevents generic drug-makers from purchasing a brand name drug. The list price for a month’s supply of Chenodal is $42,570.

  1. Cinryze – $44,140

Cinryze is used to treat hereditary angioedema, a rare life-threatening genetic condition that causes swelling in various parts of the body, including hands, face and throat. A one month’s supply runs to 16 vials, and the cost per vial is $2,758.

  1. Daraprim – $45,000

Daraprim is commonly given to AIDS and transplant patients to prevent infection, and is used to treat toxoplasmosis in otherwise healthy people. This is the medicine that got Martin Shkreli in hot water after the company at which he was CEO in 2015 raised the price per pill from $13.50 a pop to $750 almost overnight. While Daraprim can now often be obtained for $473 a tablet, the list price remains at around $45,000 for a month’s supply of 60 pills.

  1. Actimmune – $52,321

This is used to treat osteopetrosis and chronic granulomatous disease, which causes the immune system to malfunction. Patients use about 12 single-use vials a month, and each vial costs $4,360.

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