The American employer is under attack from all directions by the healthcare industry. That is what Nelson Griswold, president of Bottom Line Solutions in Nashville, Tenn., said after he discovered an advertisement by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina offering brokers a $50,000 sales bonus if they can convince their clients to enroll in their fully insured health plan.
While Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina claims fully insured is the best option for many large-group employers — it offers consistent cost and quality of coverage to bring greater peace of mind to both the employer and employee, according to their ad — many advisers say this is nothing more than a cash grab for the insurance carriers and the brokers who sign-on.
“This goes straight to the question of who does the broker work for, which is whoever signs the paycheck,” Griswold says, answering his own question. “The employer has no one — not the carrier, the broker, the third party administrator, the pharmacy benefit manager, the hospital or the doctor — sitting on their side of the table, with a shared incentive to lower healthcare cost.
A fully insured health plan is the more traditional way to structure an employer-sponsored health plan; however, the premium the company pays to the insurance carrier has steadily risen year-over-year— which is why many advisers are encouraging their clients to enroll in self-insured plans to drive down cost.
Read the full article here → $50K for fully insured clients: Sales bonus or a cash grab?
