The first step in getting insurance is to do the groundwork and research. Once you and your broker have ferreted out information from all sources, the next step is to evaluate what you have with you. You will have to ask yourself the following questions,
What is the overall value of the plan? You need to compare the coverage with the cost of the premium amount that you will be paying. But do remember that higher deductibles are not a way of reducing the premium and forgetting about it.
Choice of providers, this refers to the range of health care centers that your employees can visit. What is the location of such health care facilities? How good are they? You will have to make sure that these health care facilities or clinics are either near your office or near the region where most of your employees reside. And you will also need to find out what sort of penalties or out of pocket costs the employees will have to bear if they go to a clinic outside the network.
The quality of the insurance company, you need to know if your insurance company is reliable. Has it been around for a long time? is it a big name or is it one of the small players? The best way to verify the quality of the insurance company is to read reputed ratings lists which will show you where that particular insurance company stands in the balance sheet arena.
You need to try and balance out the benefits and the costs. Apart from just looking at the figures, you have to start looking at benefits that might apply to your employee base rather than to the general populace. Things like coverage for prescription drugs are tricky. You need to know whether you will be covered for both generic drugs and name brand drugs and if not what cost you will have to bear out of your pocket. Behavioral health coverage in California is a bit complicated. According to California’s mental health parity law, certain mental illnesses cannot be charged higher premiums or extra out of pocket payments. You need to be clear about which conditions are supported by your policy. There is also something called the annual out of pocket maximum. If any of your employee reaches a certain preordained maximum, he or she does not need to pay any co-pay for the rest of the year. These predetermined maximums have been increasing over the years, but it is comforting to know that no matter what sort of medical emergency you are facing, there is a certain limit beyond which you will not have to pay anything.
Plus, you should always compare group health insurance prices before making the decision to purchase.