Annual Enrollment – Choosing the Right Health Coverage Option

 <br /><br /><br /><br />Christine Cooper, the CEO of aequum LLC and the Co-Managing Member of Koehler Fitzgerald LLC, a law firm with a national practice along with Jack Towarnicky an ERISA/Employee Benefits compliance and planning attorney, having over forty years of experience in human resources and plan sponsor leadership roles again joins eHealth Radio and the Healthcare and Legal Channels.<br />Listen to interview with host Eric Michaels and guests Christine Cooper & Jack Towarnicky discuss the following:<br />Painful mistakes you and/or your employer should avoid at annual enrollment.<br />Eric: Number 10 – Christine, what’s number 10?<br />Christine: Number 10 is an employer mistake. It is the employer who fails to offer workers a choice of coverage. Regardless of the size of the employer, the employer should anticipate a diversity of medical coverage needs, today, AND tomorrow! At a minimum, the employer should offer at least two choices, typical would be a PPO and Health Savings Account capable options.<br />Eric: Who has number 9? Jack?<br />Jack: Number 9 is also an employer mistake. It is the decision to use a passive process. Passive means that the worker’s existing coverage will continue unless they take action to review the options and make choices. The annual enrollment process should prompt individuals to make affirmative elections – even if it is the same choices, year after year.<br />Eric: Interesting, so what is Number 8?<br />Jack: Number 8 is another employer mistake. It is the failure to adjust the coverage comparison so the differences, especially the differences in provider networks and costs are apparent, obvious. For example, where a HSA-capable coverage option is offered, the employer often fails to adjust the deductible for the other choice, typically the PPO, so that the deductible for the PPO applies in the same way. Bottom line, once you have a good idea about your expected utilization, if you must spend more than 5 minutes looking at a side-by-side comparison, that means that th