With HealthPartners, your clients can rest assured they’re receiving the high-quality health care they deserve. HealthPartners is ranked in the top 25 percent nationally in the following areas according to the 2007 U.S.News & World Report/NCQA America’s Best Health Plans issue:

• Cervical cancer screening
• Heart disease treatment
• Diabetes care
• Immunizations for children
• Depression care
• Low back pain

While national rankings might be hard to correlate into tangible care delivery, consider this: delivering all of the necessary care for diabetes prevents 80 heart attacks, 120 limb amputations and 320 cases of eye disease each year among HealthPartners members. Those are incredibly important and tangible results for our members. The credit for this excellent care goes to our providers. In recognition of their life-changing work, our pay-for-performance program will payout a total of $21 million for meeting goals in 2006. This includes 38 primary and specialty care groups that earned $860,000 for meeting quality measures on care and patient satisfaction.

“To earn these awards, providers are changing the way they deliver care and that is improving outcomes for all patients,” said Pat Courneya, M.D. HealthPartners associate medical director. "This is very hard to do, but our provider community has the creativity and determination to improve care for this difficult disease."

The Partners in Excellence bonuses recognize excellent and superior care for areas including diabetes, coronary artery disease, asthma, depression, measuring BMI, evidence-based cervical cancer screening and generic drug use. Five medical groups were the top performers in 2006: Family HealthServices Minnesota, HealthPartners Clinics, North Suburban Family Physicians and Northwest Family Physicians and Park Nicollet Health Services each earned multiple awards.

To learn more, please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

NYou already know that the two fundamental requirements of a good dental plan are great prices and a large network. What you may not realize is that HealthPartners goes above and beyond the fundamentals by offering your clients the region’s largest dental network and discounts that extend to both general practice dentists and specialists.

The HealthPartners dental PPO network is the largest in the region. It includes 80% of all metro-area dentists and nearly 60% of all Minnesota dentists. In fact, this network is larger than Delta’s PPO network and 50% larger than the network used by Guardian, Principal and Assurant.

Another advantage to HealthPartners dental is discounts that extend to both general practice dentists and all of our specialists. We encourage you to ask our competitors about their discounts. You might be surprised to discover that many only have discounts with general practice dentists. These two factors combined give your clients better access to care at a fair price.

Only HealthPartners can offer your clients:

• A regional network of 1,750 providers
  • 1,400 general dentists typically offering 15-18% discounts
  • 350 specialists typically offering 10-12% discounts
• A national network of 37,000 providers at 80,000 locations
  • Average discounts of 20%
    

If you’d like more information about HealthPartners dental plans, please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

Don’t forget that if you’re selling Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires annual training and certification.  The good news is that it’s easy to get certified for the HealthPartners® Classic, HealthPartners® Liberty and HealthPartners® Freedom individual Medicare health plans.  In fact, we get you certified right online. Our training program is available at healthpartners.com and should take you less than 30 minutes to complete. Visit the Broker Education section for course instructions and course link.

If you have questions about the online training, please feel free to contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

To ensure there is no delay in your 2008 commissions, HealthPartners must have your completed Medicare certification forms before we generate your January 2008 commissions. 

If your HSA clients partner with Wells Fargo, here’s what they’ll need to know in 2008 with respect to HSA investment options:

FDIC Insured Deposit Accounts
As of February 1, 2008, Wells Fargo is giving clients the option for HSA account holders to keep their HSA savings in a FDIC insured interest-bearing account. The interest rate will be computed based on the average daily balance of the deposit account. Interest will be credited to the HSA account on the last business day of each month beginning February 29, 2008. Interest rates are subject to change and current rates will be posted on www.wfhbs.com.This addition now permits HSA holders to keep all of their funds in an FDIC insured deposit account if they choose.

* effective February 1, 2008

Investment Minimum Requirements
HSA holders will be required to accumulate $2,000 in their FDIC insured interest-bearing deposit account before additional contributions can be invested. If an existing HSA holder does not have the $2,000 required minimum balance, future contributions will be directed into the interest-bearing FDIC insured deposit account until the balance requirement is satisfied. This change mainly affects new HSA holders, as existing holders will not be required to liquidate their investments to meet this minimum or change existing investment allocations as of January 31, 2008.

Claims Payments
One additional change will be implemented in February. Claims will be paid with cash balances first, rather than investments. This change will allow HSA holders to keep more of their assets invested over time, allowing them to take advantage of growth opportunities.

Communication Plan
In the coming weeks, HSA holders and Brokers will be receiving an information package from Wells Fargo detailing all the changes.

For more information, please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

At HealthPartners, we go the extra mile to provide comprehensive, effective customer service. If a small group misses a payment, we make every effort to solve the problem without a disruption in coverage to members. For instance if a small group is late on a payment, we contact the group multiple times in multiple ways to resolve the issue.

The sample illustration below is for a group that has not paid its August premium. In this example the group would be given until October 1 to make a payment. If no payment was received, the group would be terminated retroactive to August 1 for non-payment.

Sample Illustration

• Accounts that are zero to two months late with their payment will be reinstated if they pay within the above timeframe. 
• Accounts that are more than two months late with their payment must be re-underwritten as a new group (check with collections before re-submitting).
• Standard grace period is 31 days.
• Payments are due on or before the first day of the month for each month benefits are in force.
• Upon reapplication, a previously terminated group must pay owed premiums to HealthPartners in full.
• Terminations are retroactive to the last paid-through date. The actual notices must not go out beyond 60 days from proposed termination date, which is a State mandate.
• Demand letter 2 is sent to employees as required by State mandate.
• If the group pays its past due account after demand letter 2 goes out, the employees are sent a letter explaining that the payment was received.

To learn more, please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

Do you have clients who need affordable, temporary medical coverage right away?  Whether they’re recent graduates, in between jobs or are waiting for group coverage to start we’ve got a great solution – a Short Term Health Plan from HealthPartners! 

The new Short Term Health Plan provides members with coverage for 30, 60 or 90 days and access to the more than 470,000 providers and 4,800 hospitals nationwide. Members can choose from deductible options ranging from $300 to $2,000 and can even sign up for an HSA-eligible product.

Did we mention we’re fast? Coverage for eligible members begins right when we receive the application and payment in full. So, you might want to encourage your clients to take a Short Term Health Plan while they’re being underwritten for one of our long term individual plans. We’ll apply a member’s unused Short Term premium toward any of our long term individual plans.

Broker compensation is $5 per contract per month for this plan.

To learn more, please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

Our Frequent Fitness program continues to grow. With more than 250 clubs, your clients are one step closer to better health. New clubs as of December 1, 2007, include

• Anytime Fitness - Thief River Falls
• Anytime Fitness - Crookston
• Anytime Fitness - Grand Forks, North Dakota 
• Park Avenue Fitness - Cloquet

 Learn more about Frequent Fitness.

As our client base and membership continues to expand, so does our network. In fact, we’ve recently added a large number of providers. We’re committed to providing access to the providers your clients demand – nationwide. No matter where your clients live, work or travel, we’ve got them covered. Recent additions include:

Medical – Minnesota
Green Lake Medical Clinic – Spicer
Indian Health Board of Minneapolis – Minneapolis
Indian Health Board of Minneapolis – St. Paul
Life Steps Family Physicians, PA – White Bear Lake
Maple Medical Center – Maple Grove
Northern Lights Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine – Hugo
Regina Medical Group – Hastings
Sanford Clinic Balaton – Balaton

Medical – North Dakota
Family Medical Center North – Bismarck
Family Medical Center South – Bismarck
Medcenter One Dickinson Clinic – Dickinson
Medcenter One Jamestown Clinic – Jamestown
Q&R Clinic – Bismarck
Q&R Clinic Mandan East – Mandan
Q&R Clinic Mandan North – Mandan
Q&R Family Practice – Bismarck

Medical – South Dakota
Sanford Children’s Clinic Aberdeen – Aberdeen

Medical – Wisconsin
Regina Medical Group – Prescott

Dental – Minnesota
Advance Family Dental – Vadnais Heights
Family Dental Center of Caledonia, LLC – Caledonia
Grove Health Dental – Maple Grove
Metro Dentalcare, PLC – Shakopee
Platt Dentistry, PA – Lakeville
Serenity Dental – Woodbury
Valley Dental Group – Golden Valley

Try out our new search function so see just how easy it is to find a network provider quickly and simply. Provider Search.

Important Contacts
Our Group Medical Plans
Our Group Dental Plans
Our Individual and Medicare Plans
Our Achieve ^SM Health Improvement Programs
Our CareSpan ^SM Disease Management Programs
Direct Connect to Broker Portal