Unfortunately for many people in New England, large changes are being made to insurance plans for the upcoming year. Important changes in the way CIGNA HealthCare plans to operate in the states of Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire will take effect on January 1st of 2010, the next contract year. CIGNA HealthCare has decided to withdraw from the HMO market and no longer offer the HMO Plans to any sized employers for coverage of any employees and their eligible dependents in those states.

These changes affect the CIGNA HMO and CIGNA HMO Point-of-Service Plans which are currently used by employers with more than 50 eligible employees as well as the stand alone HMO only network use by New Hampshire Small Group employers with 50 or less than 50 employees. In order to help ease the transaction clients can replace their HMO/POS Plans upon renewal with one of the other plans that CIGNA will continue to offer.

Clients and their employees will be notified of this termination in writing starting with mailings scheduled for the week of June 15th.

2009, a new President, and new health care buzz words are upon us. As one of the Principals of HealthPlanOne, Inc. (HPOne), we find ourselves in a perfect place to help so many people, and businesses nationally that have been subject to the wrong side of the bargaining table with insurance carriers.

Do you know how much your broker is earning in commissions on your benefits package? Is it worth the amount of work they do for you? Do they lower their fees/commissions when the amount of work they do diminishes, or do they continue to earn more and more as your premiums creep up?

These are all questions we have asked, and the answers have been disappointing lots of the time. Many brokers promise IT solutions, HR portals, and other services that you “pay for” and either never use, or they are never implemented. Does your broker then reduce fees? Probably not.

If you have not visited Health Plan One, you must. Whether searching for solutions to the part time staff you have, or to reduce dependent coverage, you owe it to yourself to check with us. All of the normal “blocking and tackling” of a benefits broker is the simple stuff, and we do that as well as anyone in the business. HPOne will do more work for you, for less commissions and will always keep its fees in line with your expectations. This is something ALL brokers neglect to bring to the table.

Please let me know if we can help in any way. As one of the fastest growing web brokers in the United States, and funded by 2 of the most well known venture capitalists in the world, we are here to help, when promises do not come true. We also have several former CEO’s on our board of directors that assist us when we must apply necessary leverage in the insurance marketplace.

Get what you pay for, choose HPOne.

-Chris Efthymiou

Small Group Business