june 2015 what happens decline your coverage · the real difficulties arise if your company...
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June 2015
THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT:
What happens when employees decline your coverage PAGE 5 >
BUSINESS OF BENEFITS: WORKPLACE WELLNESS PAGE 8 >
MyAnthem
NEWS
Featured Articles
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A new look and shorter, customized content in our next newsletterHave you noticed? We’re rolling out some
exciting changes to MyAnthem News in
2015. We’ve already moved from a quarterly
to a bi-monthly schedule this year, and our
newsletter will look different the next time
you get it. With our August issue, we’re
launching a new digital enewsletter design
that’s easier to read and navigate. With the
new design, you’ll get a better, broader
experience. Best of all, you can read it
anywhere on your mobile devices, like tablets
or smartphones! And you can share and
interact with stories through social media.
Shorter, easy-to-scan articles will feature
images and videos. With a focus on top-of-
mind topics like cost of care, health care
reform, and health and wellness, our new
enewsletter will have content customized to
your group size. With a simple click or tap,
you’ll be able to share articles easily with your
employees. And all articles will be archived
for later reference, if you need them.
Stay tuned for our new enewsletter, coming in
August to your inbox!
To access an archived issue from earlier
this year, please contact your sales
representative.
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Also in this issue of MyAnthem News:FEATURED ARTICLES:
5 > The Affordable Care Act: What happens when employees decline your coverage
7 > Introducing Anthem Whole Health Connection
8 > Business of Benefits: Workplace wellness
10 > Health care coverage shopping tips for your employees
12 > Looking for free and easy-to-use wellness resources? Check out Time Well Spent!
15 > Your employees may get a confidential call from us
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of: In Colorado: Rocky Mountain Hospital and Medical Service, Inc. HMO products underwritten by HMO Colorado, Inc. In Connecticut: Anthem Health Plans, Inc. In Indiana: Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. In Kentucky: Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky, Inc. In Maine: Anthem Health Plans of Maine, Inc. In Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area): RightCHOICE® Managed Care, Inc. (RIT), Healthy Alliance® Life Insurance Company (HALIC), and HMO Missouri, Inc. RIT and certain affiliates administer non-HMO benefits underwritten by HALIC and HMO benefits underwritten by HMO Missouri, Inc. RIT and certain affiliates only provide administrative services for self-funded plans and do not underwrite benefits. In Nevada: Rocky Mountain Hospital and Medical Service, Inc. HMO products underwritten by HMO Colorado, Inc., dba HMO Nevada. In New Hampshire: Anthem Health Plans of New Hampshire, Inc. HMO plans are administered by Anthem Health Plans of New Hampshire, Inc. and underwritten by Matthew Thornton Health Plan, Inc. In Ohio: Community Insurance Company. In Virginia: Anthem Health Plans of Virginia, Inc. trades as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia, and its service area is all of Virginia except for the City of Fairfax, the Town of Vienna, and the area east of State Route 123. In Wisconsin: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin (BCBSWi), which underwrites or administers the PPO and indemnity policies; Compcare Health Services Insurance Corporation (Compcare), which underwrites or administers the HMO policies; and Compcare and BCBSWi collectively, which underwrite or administer the POS policies. Independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. ®ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
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Featured Articles
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THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT:
What happens when employees decline your coverageBeginning in 2016, employers who have 50 or more full-time or full-time-equivalent employees are required to
offer health insurance to these employees under the Affordable Care Act. Employees, however, do not have to
accept the insurance, and inevitably, some will turn it down. The consequences for a business if an employee
declines the employer-sponsored coverage depend on the nature of the health insurance offered and what
employees do instead.
Plan coverage requirements
The Affordable Care Act requires health plans to cover at least 60 percent of the cost of services on average in
order to qualify as minimum coverage (also known as the Bronze plan), according to Kaiser Family Foundation.
In addition, coverage needs to be affordable, meaning that employee contributions are limited to 9.5 percent or
less of household income, and plans must be offered to at least 95 percent of full-time employees.
What situations do not trigger penalties?
Regardless of your plan type, some scenarios will never trigger penalties. If you have employees who join their
spouses’ plans, you will not be penalized.
What causes a company to incur a penalty?
The real difficulties arise if your company doesn’t offer minimum essential coverage and full-time employees
end up qualifying for government subsidies when seeking coverage at federal or state health insurance
marketplaces (sometimes called “exchanges”). Starting in 2016, businesses with at least 50 full-time employees
will be subject to penalties if even one of their employees receives a subsidy, according to the IRS.
Employers that offer high-quality, affordable coverage to essentially all of their full-time employees can be
confident that they will not face penalties, even if some employees decide not to participate in the plan.
Excerpted from an article by David E. Williams featured on our Making Health Care Reform Work blog.
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Featured Articles
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Introducing Anthem Whole Health Connection Connected care means better care for you and your employees
Health care should serve the whole person – head to toe, at each stage of life.
With Anthem Whole Health ConnectionSM, we’re connecting our health, pharmacy,
dental, vision, life, and disability plans – resulting in better health and a simplified
experience for you and your employees. Members get complete care and
employers enjoy administrative ease with benefits from one source – meaning less
administrative hassle and less energy managing different plans.
Our health care plans work in tandem with patients and providers in a new way.
Through the portfolio, we get claims and clinical data from dentists, eye doctors,
primary care doctors and care coordinators. Then, we securely share relevant patient
information back to network providers through electronic health records, including
patient summaries, diagnoses, lab results and prescriptions. This shared data allows
us to create more complete member health profiles, which help identify gaps in care
and lead to the delivery of better, more informed care by providers.
Check out this new video and flier to learn more. And then start a conversation with
your Anthem sales representative or visit anthem.com/specialty.
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Featured Articles
Business of Benefits: Workplace wellnessAre you thinking about starting a
wellness program for your office,
or are you looking for some advice
on how to make your current
program more effective? There
are three main steps to follow in
order to lay the groundwork. By
using these tips and tricks, you’ll
see your office transform into a
healthier environment. To gain
even more insight on optimizing
your wellness program, check out
#businessofbenefits on Twitter.
CLICK ANY OF THESE IMAGES FOR MORE INFORMATION
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Featured Articles
Health care coverage shopping tips for your employeesAmericans are natural shoppers. We
like to find the best deal on pretty
much everything we buy — except our
health care coverage. When it comes
to health care, people don’t really think
about looking for a good deal, and this
can be costly for your company and
your employees. To help keep costs
under control, there are a few effective
shopping tips that you can share with
employees.
Use online shopping tools. The Internet
has made finding deals on health care
coverage much easier. FAIR Health
and Healthcare Bluebook list the
average prices of medical services and
procedures. Whenever your employees
need treatment, recommend that they
double-check the price with these
websites to make sure they’re being
treated fairly.
Ask for lower-cost options. There are
ways to get the same quality health care
coverage at a lower cost.
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Stay in the network. Your health care plan
will have a network of qualified providers.
Most plans let your employees see out-of-
network providers, but the costs will be
higher.
Avoid unnecessary procedures. Doctors
may sometimes prescribe procedures
to avoid liability or to receive a fee —
not necessarily because it’s medically
necessary. In a poll of more than 50
medical societies, doctors said annual
Pap smears, regular PSA tests for prostate
cancer, regular EKGs for people with no
history of heart disease and MRIs for back
pain were some of the most unnecessary
procedures.
By following these shopping tips, you and
your employees will be able to put a dent
in your costs and leave more money in all
of your pockets.
Excerpted from an article by David Rodeck
featured on our Making Health Care
Reform Work blog.
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Looking for free and easy-to-use wellness resources? Check out Time Well Spent!When employees are healthy, they’re likely to
remain productive on the job and be less costly
than unhealthy employees.* That’s where Time
Well Spent comes in. This easy-to-use online
resource is designed to help you create or
improve your workplace wellness strategy. It’s
available free of charge and includes turnkey
wellness campaigns, health education resources
and more to help make planning your wellness
strategy simple.
Think of Time Well Spent as your own health
library
It gives you materials and toolkits to help educate
your employees on ways to improve their overall
health and well-being. When you visit the website,
you’ll find resources on a variety of health topics,
such as chronic conditions, nutrition and physical
activity, quitting smoking and more.
You can use them whenever and however they
work best for your organization. You can email
materials, print them out and leave them in
high traffic areas, or use them in employee
newsletters or mailings.
NEW! Create healthy eating habits with our
LunchWell campaign
LunchWell is a communications campaign to
help your employees create healthy eating habits
by making small changes in how they eat – and
think about – lunch. The materials are grouped by
topic and you’ll find a comprehensive employer
guide to make it simple for you to roll out this
campaign in your workplace.
See how Time Well Spent
can make a difference in
your workplace. Click for
more information.
Not sure where to start?
Check out this online tutorial.
In just five minutes, you can get
suggestions on ways to use the
Time Well Spent materials and
get pointed to resources that
could help.
* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website: Workplace health programs can increase productivity (accessed April 2015): cdc.gov.workplacehealthpromotion/businesscase/benefits/productivity.html.
Featured Articles
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Featured Articles
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Your employees may get a confidential call from usWe care about your employees’ health and about helping them feel better.
Because we care, we may call them from time to time. For example, we
might reach out to help with things like:
~ Health issues that may include weight loss, tobacco cessation or
making healthier lifestyle choices
~ Preparing for surgery
~ Important health reminders, including appointments
~ No-cost health programs, like introducing a pregnant employee to
our maternity management program, which could help her have a
healthier pregnancy
The health and wellness programs we offer cost nothing extra, and when
we talk to your employees, we explain how they work with their health
plan. Our calls are always meant to be helpful and are always confidential.
We make sure of that by verifying the date of birth and address of the
person when we call.
Our phone calls make a big difference
About 92 percent of people who talked with our health and wellness team
members were satisfied with the support they received.* And, of course,
if your employees prefer not to get calls from us, they can contact our
Customer Service team to opt out.
* Internal study, 3-year comparison based on YTD Q2 2014 data.