Healthcare Solutions to Help Small Business Owners

As an increasing number of small business owners are struggling to provide health insurance for their employees, Health Net Health Plan of Oregon, announced a solution to help them weather the tough economy.

The solution is Enhanced Choice, an innovative health plan that helps small business owners satisfy all their employees’ health care needs, for an affordable price.

With Enhanced Choice, employers can choose to offer more than two dozen health plans – all the plans, or any combination of the plans – to their employees. (Typically, small business owners offer their employees a single health plan and pay a set premium each month.) Now, employers can pay a fixed amount within their budget and allow their employees the freedom to increase or lower their contribution in order to get the health plan they truly want and need.

“Enhanced Choice appeals to companies in which some employees may want a plan that is rich in benefits, while some may only want coverage for catastrophic conditions, and others prefer something in the middle,” explained Kevin Meier, director of Small Group Sales at Health Net of Oregon.

At one company recently, 11 employees chose four different Health Net plans, he said.

Insurance Agent Sees Benefit in Choice

Kevin Corcoran is an insurance agent who works with small business owners every day and knows how challenging it is for many to provide coverage that matches the needs of all their employees – even those who don’t anticipate the need for medical care, and those who may already be at risk for a variety of illnesses.

“Enhanced Choice is a creative solution that makes it easy for employers to ‘do the right thing’ and provide their employees with health insurance,” said Corcoran, who is vice president of development for BCI Group in Portland, Ore.

“Health Net’s Enhanced Choice product is a great answer to today’s health care challenges,” he continued. “Employers control how much they contribute to the premium, and employees have the freedom to choose the plan that they want.”