Keep your workplace flu-free

This year’s flu season is expected to be harder hitting than normal, especially with the addition of H1N1 (swine flu). That’s why HealthPartners is launching a Flu Toolkit for employers. It’s a series of tools you can use to promote flu prevention at your workplace. The Toolkit contains:

a poster that can be customized with phone numbers and worksite flu shot clinic information if desired
frequently asked questions and flu information for employees in customizable document
table tents that you can use around your workplace to raise awareness
A special Web site, healthpartners.com/flu, with information about the flu

The Toolkit will launch on October 9th in the REC Room at healthpartners.com/employer.

Pharmacy network pricing change

HealthPartners has re-negotiated our pharmacy network pricing to give us even deeper savings. This change means that our price will be based on the actual amount paid to the pharmacy and not on a fixed discount arrangement.

HealthPartners works with a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM), MedImpact, to negotiate aggressive pricing with our pharmacy network. Each pharmacy or pharmacy chain negotiates a discount rate with the PBM. The payment for the plan and the member is based on the discounted rate plus a dispensing fee.

This change will go into effect on October 1, 2009 for all commercial members. Most members with a coinsurance or health savings account (HSA) will see a decrease in cost. However, it is possible that some members will see a slight increase depending on which pharmacy they use and the rates in place for that pharmacy.

HealthPartners members have access to an online Drug Cost Calculator in their healthpartners.com account. The Drug Cost Calculator gives members the ability to see what they will pay with their benefits and the pharmacy they choose. They can even compare the prices at different pharmacies to see which offers the best deal.

This change will not only result in a cost savings, it will also promote better transparency in pharmacy pricing. If you have any additional questions about this change, please contact your broker or HealthPartners sales representative.

Healthy should be simple

This month, HealthPartners kicked off phase two of our “Healthy should be simple” open enrollment campaign. We want to make health care easy for your employees by focusing on the programs, services and tools available to help them navigate and understand health care. Key enhancements for this year’s open enrollment include:

An increased focus on the readability of our materials. Because we want to make our materials easy to understand, the average open enrollment flyer is written below an 8th grade reading level.
We created a “Guide to understanding your health plan” for members. This flyer gives members tips on what to look for in a health plan and explains common health insurance terms.
Our standard open enrollment materials are now available in Spanish! If you would like some open enrollment materials in Spanish, you can download them online or contact your sales representative.
An enhanced online Preferred Drug List (formulary). This new and improved tool will be available on October 2, 2009 at healthpartners.com/formulary.

Watch for billboards, bus sides and television commercials throughout Minnesota and Western Wisconsin with fun illustrations and “simple” health messages!

Medicare Secondary Payer update

As previously communicated, HealthPartners will begin collecting important information from you to comply with the Medicare Secondary Payer Reporting requirement during the open enrollment process.

As you may recall from our previous communications, employers that offer commercial coverage are required to provide HealthPartners with the following information:

Employer Federal Tax Identification Number
Group size, defined as total number of people employed (full- and part-time) by the company’s total family of businesses
Social Security Number or Health Identification Claims Number for HealthPartners-covered employees, spouses/ex-spouses/domestic partners and Medicare-eligible enrollees
Disability identifier for employees and dependents (if known) with effective and term dates
Employment status (active, COBRA, retired) of all employees and effective and term dates of status

You will be contacted via mail if we are missing 10 or more Social Security Numbers (SSN) from your HealthPartners-covered group members. If you do not receive this, you have nine or fewer employees or spouses missing SSNs.

Those groups for whom we do not have all SSNs should provide them to HealthPartners no later than December 31, 2009. For more information on how to provide this information, please see our “Frequently Asked Questions.”

To make changes to the Tax ID or group size on file with HealthPartners you can go to the employer portal at healthpartners.com/msp to fill out a new form and submit this information electronically.

If you have additional questions, please contact your Membership Accounting contact, broker or HealthPartners sales representative.

HealthPartners announces enhancements to wellness choices

A new, user-friendly wellness Web site is among the improvements HealthPartners offers with our enhanced wellness solutions that take a more flexible approach to employee health.

Available immediately, JourneyWell, a HealthPartners solution, offers packaged solutions that take the guesswork out of identifying an effective combination of services to engage employees and motivate better health outcomes. The changes are designed to provide a single wellness experience for all of your employees, regardless of coverage.

The new packaged solutions features include added flexibility and personalization along with flexible incentive options and increased integration capabilities. For more information, please visit JourneyWell online or contact your broker or HealthPartners sales representative.

The power of 10

When it’s time for you to make a purchase decision on a dental plan, you probably use premium as the biggest deciding factor. But that is just one thing to consider when purchasing a dental plan.

Some carriers may bundle their products together – life, disability and dental – and offer a lower rate up-front so it looks like you could save money on the dental premium.

However, we encourage you to take a look at the full spectrum of what’s available. With HealthPartners, we offer additional coverage and in some cases richer benefits on similar plans that our competition does not have.

For a standard dental plan, if our premium is $30 per month and a competitor comes in with a rate 10 percent lower, up-front an individual might save $36 a year and a family might save $120 a year. But let’s take a look at how that might cost your employees more in the long run.

Service	Average Fee	Competitor’s Plan	HealthPartners	HealthPartners Value
Sealants (typically treat 4 teeth)	$47/tooth; $188 total	$77.60 member cost	$0 member cost	$77.60 per year
Crown build-up, post, pins and cores	$250	$250 member cost (not covered)	$125 member cost (covered as crown benefit)	$125 per year
Filling	$140	$68 member cost	$0 member cost (covered under Little Partners, which provides 100 percent coverage for children 12 and younger)	$68 per year
Orthodontia	$5,000	$5,000	$4,000	$1,000

For example, the HealthPartners value for a family could look something like this:

Service

Dad has crown and crown build-up
13-year-old has braces
11-year-old has two fillings and sealants

Total HealthPartners Value

HealthPartners Value

$125
$1,000
$174

$1,299

As you can see from this scenario, a family could save nearly $1,300 in one year simply by having a HealthPartners dental plan. So the question is this: Is it better to save $120 a year on a premium 10 percent cheaper or $1,300 a year through a HealthPartners dental plan? The choice is yours. For more information, please talk to your broker or HealthPartners sales representative.