Health insurance brokers seem to be a dime a dozen these days. Most are very helpful upfront – helping to find competitive offers for you and assisting you in making an informed decision when selecting a benefits plan for your business. Since brokers don’t earn commission until you sign the contract with the insurer, they have a strong incentive to find you the best plan possible. However, once the policy is installed, most of the hands-on administrative burden for managing medical and all other ancillary policies usually becomes the employer’s responsibility.
While brokers continue to earn their commission, they rarely offer the complete administrative resources actually needed by business owners and their employees throughout the policy year. It’s surprising how much administrative time benefits-related tasks can really absorb; issues such as qualifying event changes, enrollments, terminations, benefit-related inquiries by employees, claim issues, billing issues, etc. all add up.
Focus HR has addressed this gap in service by providing a better solution. In addition to providing flexible and affordable access to health insurance, we have built a team of benefits experts to free our clients of the administrative burden that comes with offering employee benefits.
Take the Guesswork out of Healthcare Coverage
Medical, Dental, Vision, STD/LTD, Life Insurance, Worksite Benefits, etc., can all combine to create an effective employee benefits package. Employees need to know that they have quality coverage when needed.
When you choose Focus HR, we use our extensive experience and knowledge of all employee benefit offerings to find the most cost-effective solution for your company, without sacrificing the quality of coverage for your employees.
With our benefits consulting services, our experts can help you determine what type of benefits are best, balancing your budget requirements with the need to retain and attract the best employees. Using our cost containment strategies, we can find ways to help your company reduce the costs of insuring employees while continuing to offer top-notch coverage.
We help you take the guesswork out of creating a benefits package, giving you more time to focus on other opportunities for growing your business.
Reduce the burden of benefits administration
If you’re looking for a comprehensive way to manage employee benefits for your business, Focus HR combines expert brokerage services with a cloud-based administration platform that offers a complete employee benefits solution.
We can save you time and money by assisting you and your employees with the following:
Enrollments and Terminations
Employees come and go in any business. If you offer employee benefits, this will mean that new employees will need to understand the available plan options for all the various benefits you offer and then receive the proper assistance they need to get enrolled. Similarly, if you have employees separate from your company, timely action needs to be taken to process termination from the various policies, in addition to COBRA rights being extended (which we’ll review shortly). Focus HR’s Employee Benefits team can take these tasks on and work directly with your employees to handle the enrollment process (whether that is during an open enrollment period) or supporting an individual employee that joins your organization during the policy year. Similarly, our team also takes on the responsibility to process terminations for each policy when employees separate from the business.
Evaluating Eligibility
Employers need to determine a waiting period that stipulates when new employees are eligible to enroll in company-sponsored benefits. Eligibility timeframes can vary, from date of hire up to 90 days. Employers usually bear the burden of tracking eligibility and notifying their employees of such. Focus HR also takes accountability for tracking and notifying new employees when they are eligible to enroll in benefits.
Benefit Changes
Should employees experience a qualifying event, such as a birth, death, marriage or divorce, they have one number to call (the Focus HR office) and our team will work with your employee to make the appropriate changes to their plans.
Benefit Inquiries
A lot can happen in a year. Employees deal with all sorts of health-related matters. Sometimes things don’t go as planned or issues come up with physician offices, pharmacies, claims, surgeries or other issues. Claims may be denied. Certain prescriptions don’t qualify. Issues with co-pays or a host of any number of other issues can occur.
Do you want yourself or your employees to have to deal with the headache of handling these issues directly with the insurer, physician’s office or pharmacy? Focus HR provides a better solution. We advocate for our clients and their employees, helping them get the answers they need to resolve these frustrating issues that can and do occur. We’re here to help answer your team’s questions and advocate for them. Your team can call our office directly, removing your need to play “middle man.”
COBRA Administration
While COBRA (at the Federal level) has applied to all businesses with 20 or more employees, in 2018 Arizona’s Mini COBRA law (codified as A.R.S. § 20-2330) came into effect, requiring employers with less than 20 employees to also extend COBRA rights to employees for continuation of coverage in the event of a qualifying event. Qualifying events include divorce/separation from an enrollee, death of enrollee or loss of employment (or reasons other than gross misconduct). Employers (by law), must notify enrollees within 14 days of a qualifying event and the enrollee has 60 days to elect or decline coverage. If enrollees elect COBRA, the employer is responsible for handling the billing and other administrative aspects that come along with COBRA.
Focus HR clients have the huge benefit of not having to deal with COBRA administration. Our team will handle all time-mandated notifications, invoicing and monitoring so you can focus on more weightier matters.
Compliance
With the passing of the Affordable Care Act, compliance and risk took on a whole new level in healthcare and managing employee benefits. Small businesses don’t have the time or the headspace to keep track of all the nuances of ACA compliance (it’s over 2,000 pages!). They need to be focused on growing their business.
That’s where Focus HR can help. Our team is well-versed in the ACA legislation and knows exactly what we need to do to keep your business compliant and to mitigate your risk.
Auditing Insurance Invoices
Insurance companies are quick to enroll people in the plan and often slow to get them off. Our team at Focus HR will audit your monthly invoices from the carrier to ensure you’re only paying for those enrolled in the plan, saving you money and time. We’ll also make sure your employee deductions are correct with each monthly audit.
Benefits Automation
When it comes to employee benefits, many companies are still doing things the old-fashioned way. Focus HR can save your company money on employee benefits administration costs by streamlining processes and automating much of the work involved in managing your plans and integrating them with our payroll management solution. Automation also reduces human error and mitigates risk, allowing your team to focus on other important priorities like hiring new employees or improving workplace culture.
Provide better benefits to your team
Section 125 Plan
We offer our clients the opportunity to participate in our Section 125 plan, enabling their employer contributions and employee deductions to be taken out pre-tax. Section 125 plans offer employees the opportunity to defer non-taxed income for use on a wide range of medical procedures and over-the-counter purchases, both saving them money and ensuring financial stability when health issues arise.
401K
One of the most important benefits an employer can offer is a 401(k) plan, but it can be a lot to manage. As a result, small businesses are not always able to administer retirement programs. However, Focus HR makes offering a 401(k) far more affordable and hassle-free for your business. Our Multiple Employer Plan 401(k) provides all the advantages of a single-employer plan, while leveraging the asset volume of many employers, reducing administrative fees and creating a more cost-effective retirement solution for your business.
Additionally, Focus HR sustains the financial liability of the 401(k), mitigating your risk. Focus HR is responsible for all maintenance of the 401(k) plan, including maintaining ERISA fidelity bond coverage, recordkeeping, and compliance monitoring.
Streamline Benefits Administration at Your Organization with Focus HR
The ‘set and forget’ service you often find with an insurance broker will no longer be an issue for you when you partner with Focus HR. We know first-hand that benefits administration is complex and time-consuming, often falling onto the shoulders of business owners to balance a myriad of other pressing priorities. In addition, it can be difficult to keep up with laws and regulations impacting benefits packages, as they can change from year to year.
At Focus HR, our services are designed to assist you as you plan for the future. Our team is composed of highly skilled professionals who are dedicated to helping businesses succeed by offering innovative solutions that make it easier to manage your workforce.
Working with Focus HR will give your company access to everything you need for success without having to worry about administrative tasks like compliance issues or missed deadlines due to confusion over paperwork requirements. Let us take it off your hands.
Request a consultation today!
