CNY Business Journal (1996+) - Insurer: HSA plans should cover preventive treatments

DeWITT - Not all health savings account (HSA) plans are created equal, says Brian Genalo, manager of UnitedHealthcare’s upstate New York office in DeWitt.
Some HSA plans cover preventive care, such as annual checkups, pap smears, and mammograms. Other subject that care to the plans’ high deductibles.
Consumers are more likely to see their doctor if preventive care is fully covered, Genalo says.
“We don’t want to deter you from going to the doctor,” he says, noting that employees who take time to see their doctor for preventive care are more likely to remain healthy.
Many employers are using the combination of HSAs and high-deductible plans to keep their health-insurance costs down, Genalo says.

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“What’s really been looked at over the last several years is that people need to be consumers,” he says. “They need to understand what they’re spending monies on, so through evolution, HSAs have come about.”
HSAs allow consumers to save money to cover the high deductibles generally associated with the plans. The employer and employees both contribute money to the account. Employee contributions are typically deducted from their paychecks before taxes.
Using a high-deductible plan and HSAs makes sense because the rates are lower than other, more traditional plans, says Christian Marshall, executive vice president of brokerage services at Falcone Associates, Inc., an insurance company at 901 Lodi St, in Syracuse.
Marshall believes the combination forces the consumer to “take control” of their own health-care costs by deciding if their ailment is something that really requires a trip to the doctor’s office.
“Instead of running to the doctor every time you have a sniffle, cough, or cold, maybe you think twice about it since you are paying for the visit,” Marshall says.
He says Falcone offered its 25 employees traditional health insurance through Excellus BlueCross BlueShield of Rochester through 2006. The company then switched to a high-deductible plan with HSAs through Oneida-based Support Services Alliance, Inc. (SSA) and Excellus.
But Falcone switched to UnitedHealthcare for 2008 because its high-deductible plan fully covers preventive care. The care was subject to the deductible under the SSA plan, Marshall says.
Falcone decided to renew the UHC plan for 2009, he says.
The health savings accounts at JPMorgan Chase have grown 60 percent in the last year, the company announced Sept. 9. JPMorgan HSAs are offered directly to consumers through Chase, the firm’s consumer banking arm.
The bank has more than 300,000 HSAs and more than $400 million in assets in those accounts, the company says.
Copyright Central New York Business Journal Oct 10, 2008
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