Let's Find The Right Health Insurance Plan For Your Small Business

Small businesses often take on one of the greatest challenges when finding the right health insurance to provide their employees. There are countless options to explore and varying costs to consider. It can make sourcing health insurance plans that provide affordable and quality insurance for you and your employees overwhelming.

As a business owner, you may wonder how much coverage and which insurance plans are right for your employees and that provide the right balance for their healthcare needs. Most health insurance plans tend to differ significantly based on numerous factors. Factors can include your company size, employee ages and location, and coverage options needs.  like family or individual health insurance plans will vary between providers.

Health insurance is more than just a cost for you and your employees—it's an important part of running your company and offering benefits coverage that matters. So, how do you find the right health insurance coverage for your small business? Let's explore it in this post.

Understanding the Small Business Health Insurance Plan Types

The best benefit a small business can offer their employees is to offer health insurance to them. Providing health insurance for employees, whether you have 5 employees or 50, can also help attract and retain high-quality talent for your company. Small business owners can often make the decision process easier when finding the right health insurance plans for their business by understanding the plan types that many providers offer.

Small group health insurance plans can provide coverage to both individual employees, as well as their dependents. To simplify the types of plans you’ll be reviewing, most group plans fall under these 4 types:

• Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO): this type of plan allows you to choose from a preferred list of doctors, but does not necessarily require it. Generally, if you visit a doctor or hospital in the preferred provider list, you are likely to pay less out of pocket.
• Health Maintenance Organization (HMO): requires you to get your care from a specific network of doctors and hospitals in your area. For example, if you need to go to the emergency room for a broken ankle, your HMO might not pay for treatment at the hospital if it is considered out of network care.
• Point-of-Service (POS) Plans: this type of healthcare plan has similarities with PPOs. It gives members additional flexibility regarding billing non-network providers after passing through an out-of-network deductible amount first. These plans are not as common.
• Exclusive Provider Organizations (EPO): an insurance plan type where the covered individual can only use doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers who are part of your insurer's network. EPO plans may not require a referral to see a specialist, if you remain in-network.

These main health insurance plan types are common among most providers. It's important to also keep in mind that these types of health insurance plans also have varying coverage levels and doctor networks. 

Your business size and the number of full-time employees can determine many of the facets between the services covered and the premium costs. By getting an instant quote from us and using our comparison tool, we can help you better determine your options.

Explore Small Business Health Insurance Coverage Options

When finding the right health insurance coverage for your small business, you will need to explore all of the different types of coverage for your employees. As a small business owner, you are the advocate for your company and therefore your employees. A big piece of that can be  providing quality and affordable health benefits for employees. This means considering and comparing your small group health insurance options versus individual health insurance plans on the exchange.

Shopping around for the best health plans for employees is critical to finding the right health insurance plan for your small business. In your small business, you have to decide whether to provide employees with a PPO,  HMO, or other coverage and network type.

As an example, if you have a staff  of 10 employees, it may be a better option to provide them with a PPO coverage option, whereby they can choose their own doctors and work within a larger network. While it is generally more costly than an HMO, it allows your staff to choose the health insurance provider and better plan options that align with their needs, eliminating the need for you to select a plan that has every doctor needed in network for all of those employees.

Cost is likely one of the largest concerns when selecting a health benefits package. In a case where cost to the employees is the main factor to consider, then an HMO, which is generally a lower cost, may be the better fit. It may not allow more freedom of choice in health insurance providers for your employees, but it can reduce employee premiums and their monthly costs. To save time and money in your search, working with a health insurance broker can remove a lot of stress for many small business owners, meaning you don’t have to do as much legwork.

Consider the Monthly Cost of Small Business Health Insurance

Small businesses are often expected to provide health insurance to their employees once they reach a certain size. Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in the United States, most citizens are required to hold a mandatory minimum health plan. But you are likely wanting to get the process started earlier than employee 50. Whether you have 1 employee or 50, we can help you get the coverage you need for your team.

Before you can decide on the best health insurance plan for your small business, you need to consider the monthly cost. The monthly cost will vary depending on the plan you choose and how you decide to offer coverage.  

A couple of cost related items to keep in mind:  if you have several employees who need coverage, will you also be providing some assistance to their dependents? Will you offer coverage to part-time employees as well as full-time employees?  Will you set up a 30 day waiting period for new employees before their coverage is effective, or will it be 90? While getting your custom quote for your business, questions often come up and when they do, we’ll be here.

It's no secret that companies that offer quality employee benefits and consider the employee health insurance cost often see greater staff retention and can in turn also recruit high-quality talent for their small business more effectively. There are countless options available to small businesses, but it can be hard to find them all in one place. We’ve got that covered for you. 

As a small business owner, your time is valuable and we know that. We want you to see every plan available in your area in order to let you compare options and make the right choice. And if you have questions, we can help you find the right solution. Contact us today to get started with providing quality and affordable health insurance for your small business.