September 24, 2019

Short-term Health Plans Skimp on Medical Payments

A new report by the trade publication Modern Healthcare shows just how little short-term care plans spend on enrollees’ medical claims.

The report found that some plans spent as little as 9 cents of every premium dollar they collected on medical care.

The average paid out among the short-term plans analyzed in a report by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners was 39.2%. That’s a far cry from the 80% of premiums health plans are required to spend on medical care to comply with the Affordable Care Act.

The figures shine a harsh light on just how little short-term health plan policyholders benefit from the plans they purchase. 

The Trump administration issued regulations in 2018 that extended the amount of time someone can enroll in a short-term health plan to 12 months, and policyholders can renew coverage for a maximum of 36 months.

These plans do not have to comport with the ACA, like not covering 10 essential benefits and not having to cover pre-existing conditions – and they can even exclude coverage for medications.

2018 short-term health plan medical outlays*

Cambia Health Solutions: 9.3%
Spectrum Health: 36.1%
Genève Holdings: 36.2%
UnitedHealth Group: 37.3%
Medical Mutual of Ohio: 40.4%
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of SC: 44.2%
* As a percentage of premium charged

The above chart means that for every dollar collected in premium, the average short-term plan spent 39 cents on medical care for policyholders – with the rest spent on administration or kept as profit.

Short-term plans usually lack the consumer protections found in ACA-compliant plans and they have gaps in coverage that may not be readily apparent in marketing materials, which makes it difficult to compare plans and understand the full scope of coverage.

Importantly, as stated above, they are not required to and usually don’t cover the 10 essential health benefits that the ACA requires compliant plans to cover at no cost to the enrollee.

This scant coverage makes these plans much cheaper than ACA-compliant plans.

Here are some of the features of short-term plans that ACA-compliant plans are not permitted to offer:

Use health histories to determine who can get coverage – Applicants for short-term plans must often answer a health questionnaire used to screen out applicants with symptoms of an illness or condition – even if not yet diagnosed or treated. Some plans also exclude coverage for conditions for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was recommended or received in the prior 12 months.

Exclude key service categories from covered benefits – Few if any short-term plans cover maternity. Prescription drugs are not always covered, or they are only partially covered. Some plans exclude coverage for mental health, substance use disorder services, and tobacco cessation treatment.

No pre-existing conditions – Few short-term plans cover any pre-existing conditions. Typically, they cover only what’s listed in the Schedule of Benefits. If one of those is a pre-existing condition, it will likely have a cap of no more than $30,000. Also, insurers will often deny claims or cancel coverage for conditions they consider to be pre-existing.

Covered services limited – Many short-term plans have covered benefit limits like:

  • $1,000 per day for a hospital room and board
  • $1,250 a day for intensive care
  • $50 a day for doctor visits while in hospital
  • Total benefits are often capped at little more than $100,000 per year.

Renewal not guaranteed – Short-term plans will rarely guarantee renewal. If an enrollee suddenly develops a new health condition, the plan will likely not renew them.

September 17, 2019

Small Employers Can Reimburse for Medicare Part B, D Premiums

As the workforce ages and many employers want to keep on baby-boomer staff who have the experience and institutional knowledge that is irreplaceable, one issue that always comes up is how to handle health insurance.

Once your older workers reach the age of eligibility for Medicare, under current law you can help them pay for Part B and D premiums with a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement. These types of arrangements became legal after legislation was signed into law in 2013 to help employers provide benefits to their Medicare-eligible staff.

But the issue surfaced again recently when the Trump administration came out with new guidance for health reimbursement arrangements that paves the way for employers to set up HRAs to reimburse staff for health premiums in their personal (not company group) health plans.

Anybody who is about to turn 65 has a six-month period to sign up for basic Medicare, but if they want additional coverage they can pay for Medicare supplemental coverage such as Parts B and D.

Part B covers two types of services:

Medically necessary services: Services or supplies that are needed to diagnose or treat your medical condition and that meet accepted standards of medical practice.

Preventive services: Health care to prevent illness (like the flu) or detect it at an early stage, when treatment is most likely to work best.

Part D, meanwhile, covers prescription drug costs.

The dilemma for employers has often been whether to keep the Medicare-eligible employee on the company health plan or cut them free on Medicare.

Smaller employers – those with 20 full-time-equivalent employees – have the option to open a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement for those employees if they are coming off a group health plan and into Medicare.

For small employers, it’s legal to set up an arrangement like that, as long as doing so is at the employee’s discretion. Employers are not allowed to push an employee into a Medicare Premium Reimbursement Arrangement in order to get them off the company’s health plan.

The good news for employers is that they often can reimburse their employees in full for Part B and D, as well as Medicare Supplement, and still pay less than they would pay in group employee premiums alone. 

On top of that, the employee gets a lower deductible and overall out-of-pocket experience with less, if any, premium contribution.  

What you need to know

Here’s what you should know if you’re considering one of these arrangements:

A Medicare reimbursement arrangement is one where the employer reimburses some or all of Medicare part B or D premiums for employees, as long as the employer’s payment plan is integrated with the group’s health plan.

To be integrated with the group health plan:

  • The employer must offer a minimum-value group health plan,
  • The employee must be enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B,
  • The plan must only available to employees enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B, or D, and
  • The reimbursement is limited to Medicare Parts B or D, including Medigap premiums.

Small Employers Can Reimburse for Medicare Part B, D PremiumsNote: Certain employers are subject to Medicare Secondary Payer rules that prohibit incentives to the Medicare-eligible population.

September 11, 2019

IRS Eases Access to Chronic Disease Treatment

New guidance from the IRS will help people enrolled in high-deductible health plans get coverage for pharmaceuticals to treat a number of chronic conditions.

Under the guidance, medicinal coverage for patients with HDHPs that have certain chronic conditions – like asthma, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and more – will be classified as preventative health services, which must be covered free with no cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act.

The background

The guidance, which takes effect immediately, is the result of a June 24 executive order issued by President Trump directing the IRS to find ways to expand the use of health savings accounts and their attached HDHPs to pay for medical care that helps maintain health status for individuals with chronic conditions.

The executive order was in response to a number of reports that have shown that people with HDHPs will often skip getting the medications they need or take less than they should because they cannot afford to foot the full cost of the medication even before they meet their deductible.

This can lead to worse issues like heart attacks and strokes, which then require more and even costlier care, according to the guidance.

The latest move is a significant step that should greatly reduce the cost burden on individuals with chronic conditions, as many of the medications they need to treat their diseases can be extremely expensive.

The IRS, the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services have listed 13 services that can now be covered without a deductible, and have promised to review add or subtract services from the list on a periodic basis, according to the guidance.

Here is the full list of the treatments, and the conditions they are for:

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors – Congestive heart failure, diabetes, and/or coronary artery disease.

Anti-resorptive therapy – Osteoporosis and/or osteopenia.

Beta-blockers – Congestive heart failure and/or coronary artery disease.

Blood pressure monitor – Hypertension.

Inhaled corticosteroids – Asthma.

Insulin- and other glucose-lowering agents – Diabetes.

Retinopathy screening – Diabetes.

Peak-flow meter – Asthma.

Glucometer – Diabetes.

Hemoglobin A1c testing – Diabetes.

International Normalized Ratio testing – Liver disease and/or bleeding disorders.

Low-density lipoprotein testing – Heart disease.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – Depression.

Statins – Heart disease and/or diabetes.

The items above were chosen because they are low-cost, proven methods for preventing chronic conditions from worsening or preventing the patient from developing secondary conditions that require further and more expensive treatment.

September 4, 2019

Circuit Court Seems Poised to Shoot Down Individual Mandate

It’s looking more and more likely that a federal appeals court will strike down the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which requires Americans to carry health insurance, either through coverage they receive from their employer or buying it themselves.

The case challenging the landmark health insurance law is currently before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is being heard by a three-judge panel.

Two of the judges, appointed by Republicans, have signaled that they would strike down the individual mandate but not the remainder of the law, including the employer mandate, because of the lack of an individual penalty.

The Justice Department would normally be defending the law of the land, but it has stepped away from the task and signaled that it would prefer to see the law abolished. At issue is the repeal by Congress in late 2017 of penalties for individuals that do not secure coverage as required by the law.

Attorneys general from Republican states banded together to challenge the entire law after the individual penalty was abolished after Trump signed a tax bill that reduced the tax penalty to zero dollars. They argued that if that penalty is no longer applicable, the rest of the ACA is null and void.

According to trade press reports, the two Republican-appointed judges probed the contention by Republican states’ attorneys general that the getting rid of the individual penalty nullifies the entire law. The two judges’ line of questioning hinted at their skepticism of that argument.

The background

The case is before the 5th Circuit after a federal district court judge sided with the argument by Republican state attorneys general that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and could not be severed from the rest of the ACA, and hence the entire law must be invalidated.

When the Justice Department declined to defend the law, attorneys general from several Democratic states House representatives appealed the ruling.

Lawyers for the Democratic states said that the plaintiffs needed to prove that Congress intended for the entire ACA to be struck down when it passed legislation to get rid of penalties.

The court has not made a decision on the case yet, but whatever its ruling, it will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attempts to overturn the ACA at the Supreme Court have met stiff resistance.

In 2012, a divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of the law’s provisions, including the individual mandate, which requires people to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority found Congress could not constitutionally order people to buy insurance. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal members to hold that the mandate was a valid exercise of Congress’s tax power.