Health Insurance

Help Keep Your Employees Healthy

May 27, 2010 by Sarah Leave a Comment

Help Keep Your Employees Healthy Encouraging your employees to stay health has a lot of benefits for you as an employer. Not only will you have to pay lower health-care costs, but you’ll see more production and less absenteeism. In 2007, a survey revealed that nearly half of all companies were working on some health-related program to benefit their employees and that for every dollar spent on encouraging employee health, companies saved five dollars.

Sure, big businesses and corporations have the money to roll out fancy health programs for their employees but there are things you can do as a small business owner, as well. There are many things you can do for your employees (and your company) on a smaller budget. Here are a few tips to help get you started.

1. Healthy Snacks – Every office has snacks lying around, many times purchased by the boss, but healthier snacks can make healthier workers. Instead of a big bag of M&Ms, go for a big bag of mixed nuts, which are a great source of protein. Instead of chips, get a vegetable platter. Put a water cooler next to your soda machines or keep your break room fridge stocked with bottles of water. If you have a company cafeteria, make sure the meals served are healthy.

2. Promote a Healthy Lifestyle – Hang posters or fliers that encourage exercise or offer advice on making healthy food choices. Maybe your local gym is offering a membership discount this month – put a flier in each of your employee’s paycheck envelopes or stick one in each of their mailboxes. Make health-consciousness the norm around the office. You may even be able to work a deal with a local gym or health food store, to offer a discount for your employees only.

3. Help employees make time for their health – Give fifteen minute stress relief breaks each day. If you have the space and money, bring some gym equipment into your office that employees can use during break times. Help employees find a route to walk or jog around your office. Allow health professionals to come in and give your employees health screenings for issues such as high blood pressure or high blood sugar. Or even hire a masseuse to come in and allow employees to pay for short massages.

4. Offer bonuses and incentives – Lots of offices have contests for those looking to lose weight, maybe throw in a prize for the winner. Offer your own discounts on gym memberships or include a gift certificate to a health food store in with yearly bonuses.

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So What Does Obama Care Mean for Small Business?

March 24, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Be careful little hands what you do!

Congress last night enacted President Obama’s sweeping healthcare plan, but like many things congress didn’t consider all the details. The idea was to assist small business and individual Americans in purchasing healthcare, what it will end up doing is slow and reduce hiring in the future.

The president’s plan is number driven: business from x amount of employees to y amount of employees pay z much toward healthcare, or if they do not, they are fined w amount. This was a fair idea if American company’s personnel strategy was still to hire employees, but frankly, they missed the boat. Instead of hiring marginal employees, companies will either do without the marginal hire or use temps and/or contractors to do the job. Furthermore, with all of the job quota entanglements (and they still are out there), a business owner will have to consider if he or she is going to break a certain healthcare number threshold. Business owners are going to pay very close attention especially if they are near the 50 employee point and this creates a very discomforting scenario.

Suppose a business is at 49 employees and it needs to hire a transportation manager. Looking through the list of employees, there is the transportation secretary who has been a very good employee, but is a secretary. What should the business owner do? Well, the smart thing (but brutal thing) to do is fire/layoff/RIF the secretary and hire the transportation manger; addition by subtraction is going to be rampant! Who will get hurt? The people the president was most trying to help, average hard working Americans! Of course, the secretary might be advised that she can “contract” her old job back with xyz temporary service. What a crock! Of course, xyz temporary service will also have to consider the numbers game, but that leads to some brutal consequences as well. How long can you be a contractor/temp before you are automatically switched out (again to duck the numbers game)?

Also, just how hard is it to start a company as a separate legal entity? A business owner can start an LLC in about 2 days, and a small corporation, like a chapter S, does not take much longer. Remember each of these legal business entities are totally separate “persons.” Therefore the employee counter starts all over again. So too, cost center accounting has been around for years, and each department bills other departments for the work it does. For example, customer service bills sales for processing its orders. How hard would it be to create separate companies, each one under 10 or 25 employees?

Lastly, some companies are just not going to go through the aggravation of the numbers game, and will move some parts of their company off shore. More jobs lost for more Americans, I seem to be recalling which road that it is that’s paved with good intentions…

HSA Raises Contribution Limits for SMBs

December 18, 2007 by John Beagle 1 Comment

Great news for all those SMBs with employee HSA account holdders, the 2008 HSA Contribution and Out-of-Pocket Maximums and High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) Minimums have been raised.

The new Maximum Contribution for 2008:
* Increases the maximum contribution to $2,900 (individual coverage) $5,800 (family coverage) regardless of deductible and number of months in the high deductible health plan.

* Catch-up contribution (age 55 and over): $900 for 2008
As an FYI, funds contributed in excess of $6,700 ($5,800 + $900 catch-up) attributable to 2008 will be rejected for “over contribution.” The comparable level is $6,450 ($5,650 + $800 catch-up) for 2007.

Maximum out-of-pocket – increases to $5,600 for individual coverage (up from $5,500) and to $11,200 for family coverage (up from $11,000) for 2007
Minimum deductible for qualified high deductible health plans remains at $1,100 for individual coverage and at $2,200 for family coverage

Read the HSA Case Study