Beneficial Health Plans Help Attract Employees

Many small businesses use health insurance to attract employees, yet they also feel the pinch of rising health insurance costs. Small businesses turn to US Business Finance Corp for merchant credit card processing services in order to increase sales – both in the store and expand to online sales. With increased sales, creating a health insurance program becomes a reality.

Health insurance helps attract key talent and becomes a bargaining chip in the hiring practice. Many companies have sought for a middle of the road solution to both help their employees and avoid the hefty health insurance increases. Weighing in on the decision was the nature of the insurance – to keep the insurance cost down, many companies covered employees for catastrophic illnesses with high deductibles. They found that most employees did not benefit from the coverages and looked for alternatives that would better benefit most of their employees.

The 2003 legislative changes created Health Savings Accounts (HSA) – a tax-exempt savings account that could be funded on a monthly basis by employers or a pre-tax contribution by the employee, depending on how the account is set up. Employees could tap into their individual accounts to pay for simple doctor visits. The accounts are not limited to the employee’s health care, but extend to their family also. These accounts work to cover the area that the high deductible insurance policies do not cover.

Another benefit of an HSA is that the medical treatments that are allowed by the IRS (they have a say since it is a tax-exempt account) cover many alternative healing modalities such as chiropractors, acupuncturist, and psychoanalysts, as well as dental and eye care, which are often excluded from basic health insurance policies.

Employers like the HSA route since it both can save them money – almost 30% over the co-payment insurance route – and gives their employees greater control over their medical care. A side effect of HSA implementation is that once employees take more responsibility for their health maintenance they often start making healthier choices at meal times.

Employees also like the HSA option since all unspent funds remain in the savings account. The account can continue to accrue funds to be available after retirement. Since the HSA belongs to the employee, not the employer, the employee has the discretion to use the account or save up for the medical rainy day.

Since small and medium-size businesses historically have found that health insurance has given them a competitive advantage in hiring the best employees, HSAs give employers a way to help employees beyond the affordable catastrophic coverage. Also when health insurance programs are instituted, employee moral and the businesses profitability usually go up.

To help your company increase sales, turn to the alternative financing and credit card processing specialists at US Business Finance Corp – we find the best credit card processing and alternative financing solutions for small and mid-sized businesses.

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