It is that time of year again, when employers have to make decisions about employee benefits. Employers are facing a time when health care costs continue to rise, and profits are at best holding steady. Some businesses will end worker coverage because they just can’t afford to continue offering it. Others will make more aggressive efforts to continue offering coverage by drawing on a range of options that limit spending and make employees more accountable for their health care expenses.

Today we are seeing many more options that keep paychecks intact while creating incentives for participants to hold down their medical expenses. Instead of making employees pay more in premiums, they are utilizing consumer driven health plans like an HRA to creatively keep health care costs down.

The use of high deductible coverage in conjunction with tax advantaged Health Reimbursement Arrangements has become increasingly more popular over the past five years. Not only have they become more popular, but estimates show that they are roughly 23% cheaper than traditional health plans.

For employers who have to end coverage altogether, there are even more tax advantaged plans available to help them. With minimal cost, many employers are establishing 125 Cafeteria plans to at least try and stay competitive with other companies when they don’t have the funds to foot the bill for an extensive benefit plan.

A new 125 Cafeteria option which became available this year is Health Care Premium Reimbursement, which allows employees in eligible states to pay for individual health care premiums on a pretax basis.

Many small business owners have established these types of plans to retain a competitive benefit plan or to enhance their current benefit plan and increase payroll tax savings for both the employer and employee.

This is the perfect time for everyone to re-evaluate their employee benefit package to see if they could be saving money that could be used to strengthen other areas of their business. Why hold steady, when there are plenty of options available that have been tested and proved by an increasing number of business owners around you.

Anne Case                                                                                             BASE - Marketing

I could blog every time about the products that BASE® offers and what an awesome benefit they can be to any business out there but, lets go off the beaten track for this blog.

Do you ever wonder what goes on here at BASE®? What we do all day?

Your first contact with our office will likely be with our receptionist. We want to make sure you speak to a live person not a recording! Our receptionist wears many hats, she answers the phones and directs your calls to the appropriate people, enters leads into our database, stuffs envelopes, and is willing to help out however possible. A few of the rest of us fill in when she is at lunch or out for the day and we all try hard to fill her shoes!

Benefit Specialists. Wow, what can I say about these folks? They can do it all! They qualify your business, explain the plan, and get your HRA set up. But, it doesn’t stop there. They also go over your documents with you to make sure you fully understand how the plan works. They talk with your tax preparers, accountants, or financial planners and educate them on how HRAs work. They attend tradeshows all over the United States to give out information on our products. They are available to answer any questions or concerns. Their knowledge of all aspects of an HRA is amazing!

Our Group Products department is a thriving part of our company. Just like our Benefit Specialists, this department will talk to you about what you want to achieve for your employee benefits, set up a plan to suit your specific needs and get your plan started. There are so many rules and regulations set on FSAs and HRAs for larger employers – these guys really know their stuff! This department is always doing a lot of research to make sure all of our clients with group products are kept in compliance.

I am going to make this a two-part blog because we have many behind the scene jobs I want to tell you about too! It takes a lot of teamwork; knowledge and good old fashion drive to make BASE® the great place it is. I’m looking forward to the next time I blog to tell you about the rest of our organization!

Don’t forget about the services we provide (you didn’t really think I would go without saying this, did you?), BASE® HRA, BASE® HRA+, BASE® 125 Cafeteria. Take a few minutes if you’re not enrolled with us, call to see if we can help. If you are enrolled – Good for you! You’ve taken the steps necessary to get a deduction you deserve!

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to stop back on November 13^th for Part 2 of "Life at BASE®".

How soon we forget, as days go by and we are now back to whom we were the moments before we heard the stories of people, down and out, who are now moving mountains.

Many states have decided to be a force and provide new benefit opportunities for business owners and their employees to move and make things happen, whether they are looking to enrich current benefit plans, offset benefit cutbacks, or implement cost saving measures.