Health Insurance for Dentists
Individual Health Insurance
With the continued escalating cost of group health insurance many of our clients are electing to abandon their group health policy and obtain individually owned health insurance which provides the necessary protection for their families. Individual health insurance protection is nearly identical, in most situations, with the group health insurance policy being replaced.
Rather than having cost increases based universally by age group, regardless of your health, individual health insurance charges you the cost for an exact age and health condition. Normally this feature alone results in substantially lower premiums than group health insurance.
If you would like to see if an individual health insurance policy is right for you just give us a call or fill out the contact request box and we will have one of our trained representatives contact you to prepare a customized individual health insurance analysis for you and your family.
Health Savings Accounts
Health Savings Accounts are one of the best gifts Congress has given our clients in recent memory. If you are healthy, with no reoccurring health or medication issues, a Health Savings Account insurance policy should be right for you. Sometimes health insurance premium savings of as much as 50% may be achieved.
The biggest complaint with health insurance is the fact that one must pay a significant amount of money to an insurance company in case they sustain an illness or injury. If they remain healthy all the funds are lost and never recovered. The Health Savings Account solves this problem by allowing the client the opportunity to pay when they are sick or injured, thereby allowing for significant savings if they remain healthy. In other words the Health Savings Account policy rewards one for being healthy. In addition to significant cost savings, over traditional individual or group insurance policies, the Health Savings Account policy can save you money on your taxes!
The policy is composed of two parts. A high deductible insurance policy and a tax-deductible, tax-deferred, medical savings account like program called the Health Savings Account. Any money contributed into the Health Savings Account may then be withdrawn to pay for qualified medical expenses, pretax, usually by way of a debit card. Any funds remaining in the account after age 65 are available for normal distribution subject to ordinary income taxation. Any funds withdrawn not used for medical expenses, prior to age 65, are subject to a 10% penalty.
In 2009, the deductible for the health insurance plan must be at least $1,150 for individuals or $2,300 for families. Contributions to the savings account portion are not required but a family may shelter up to $5800 per year if under age 55 and if starting the policy after age 55, up to $6800 per year.
To get a complete understanding of how all this works the Wikipedia site covers Health Savings Accounts very well. You may access this site at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account
If you would like to see if an a Health Savings Account policy is right for you just give us a call or fill out the contact request box and we will have one of our trained representatives contact you to prepare a customized health insurance analysis for you and your family.
Full Description Of How a Health Savings Account Insurance Plan Works & Calculators
Group Health Insurance
It's been our long-held belief that group health insurance is not normally beneficial for small dental office. Given the routine staff make up individual health insurance seems to make a better fit.
Our typical dental client usually has a group health insurance plan with the only plan participants being paid for our the doctor and his or her family, all single employees but not their dependents. Married staff are typically excluded from the policy as they are generally covered under their spouse’s policy. Under these circumstances, unless needed by the doctor and his or her family, maternity is usually not a required coverage.
Group insurance, unlike individual health insurance, mandates maternity coverage be included in the policy. Therefore significant portions of the health insurance premium paid for the policy are to pay for expensive maternity benefits that are not even needed. And in some policies the maternity rate is even charged for male employees!
Huge legal liability issues, from both the employees and the government, exist for the owner of a group health insurance policy. Unless the owner is following the HIPPA and State health insurance laws exactly, with no exceptions, penalties, fines, and civil litigation expenses may be incurred. Also insurance company rules must be followed exactly. Do you know all of those rules and laws?
Another major obstacle with group health insurance is disgruntled employees who wish to quit may not be able to if they have uninsurable health conditions thus necessitating their continued employment which may be less than subpar. If one of these employees wishes to work for another dentist, but does not have group health insurance, they will not be able to make the switch to the new employer as they will be unable to obtain health insurance. Even if insurance coverage could be obtained through some sort of State pool it is normally extremely expensive and unaffordable for most employees.
Additionally it becomes difficult to terminate an unsuccessful employee if they have a major medical condition. Would you want to be the person that fires someone who hasn't uninsurable health condition and would lose their insurance?
All in all, in most cases, we tried to terminate group health insurance plans and substitute them with individually owned insurance by the dentist and his or her family. Employees are simply told to find insurance on their own.
If you would like to see if an individual health insurance policy is right for you just give us a call or fill out the contact request box and we will have one of our trained representatives contact you to prepare a customized individual health insurance analysis for you and your family.