HSA!!!

sssteel

Has anyone had any experience with HSAs? Our company is looking for ways to cut down on our insurance cost and a HSA is an option that we are seriously considering. Right now we are partially self-funded which has worked great for us in the past but this year we have had a number of employees have serious illnesses. Please let us know what your experience with a HSA has been. Thank you

NaeNae55

I sat in on a committee hearing at the state capital about HSA's just last week. We have not personally had one here where I work, but Beverly Gossage, an expert in the field, spoke about them and how they work. Her experience started by trying to help the family business save money on health insurance. She made a good case.

The next person to testify was a lady I like and trust. She has been in the top position for the state SHRM here in Kansas. She talked of how well it worked for her organization in controlling costs, and how well it worked for her personally. Her organization offerred it as their core plan, but also offerred 2 other plans to employees. The HSA is the overwhelming leader among the employees. Her employees are sophisticated when it comes to insurance.

The final person I saw testify was from an organization with high turnover and little sophistication when it comes to benefits. They changed completely to an HSA plan. There was some communication issues at the very beginning, but now they have it down pat. They are still paying less for insurance than they did when they installed it in 2004.

Again, I don't have any personal experience with these types of plans, but since I just heard so much about them, I thought I would just pass it on.

Good luck!


Nae

HR Hat

We just started our HSA, so I'll defer to others as to how it has worked out.

We were a little rushed rolling it out, starting about November for effectve date of January. We pay 80% of the premium for employee and family for either standard insurance plan we have now, or HSA. We rebate some of the premium savings back to employees if they choose HSA. We did this to encourage HSA participation.

About 20% of those who have health insurance chose HSA, more than I thought would take it. Some were already familiar with HSA's which helped. We used a local bank to set up checking/debit card accounts.

We held multiple mandatory meetings for all staff. The presentation was given mostly by a insurance rep, some by our HR. After 30 minutes, if staff weren't interested, they could leave. Those that stayed behind went through a question/answer session which lasted another 15-30 minutes. I'm not a big fan of mandatory meetings (because of the cost), but it was needed for this somewhat complex benefit.

Again, we are very early into this, but several staff were appreciative of having this option.

Jim.

cnghr

We have had an HSA for a couple of years now. We did extensive education the year we switched, and have done meetings a couple of time since then, but it's really not a terribly popular benefit with our employees. I think the highest participation level we've ever had was around 15%, and it's now down to about 10%.

It isn't saving the company as much money as we had thought it would, either. The first year we were on it our renewal was really good, only about a 1% increase to our premiums overall, and we thought that might be because of the HSA. But then last fall when we renewed, we had a pretty high increase and we noticed that most of that was due to the HSA premiums increasing pretty dramatically. When we asked the insurance company about it, they told us that they found they had been underpricing their HSAs so had adjusted the premiums.

We will continue to offer the HSA as an option for those who want to use it, but in our case I would have to say it hasn't been the greatest success and if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't.