HealthAllies Launches Suite of Products to Significantly Reduce Cost of Healthcare for Employers and Their Employees
First Customers To Roll Out Service To More Than 20,000 Employees
HealthAllies, a provider of consumer-driven health benefits, today announced a new suite of products called HealthAllies Plus, which enables companies greater flexibility in making cost-saving changes to their health plan designs. For employees, it provides a benefit that offers savings on uncovered and out-of-pocket healthcare costs. The company also announced agreements with several employers, including Emerald Solutions, Beacon Communications, Rent-A-Wreck and Southern Health Systems, a Birmingham, Ala.-based HMO, covering more than 20,000 lives.
"With the costs of medical benefits expected to increase more than 12 percent across all plan types in 2001, employers are seeking new market-ready solutions to help reduce their expenses," said Andy Slavitt, president and CEO of HealthAllies. "The HealthAllies Plus suite of products offers employers a customizable solution that can help reduce employer healthcare costs anywhere from 5 to 10 percent while helping their employees to save even more money through preferred rates on many uncovered services, which average $1,300 a year."
HealthAllies Plus is a suite of customizable benefits that complements a company's existing insured benefits by providing employees point-of-care savings of 10 to 60 percent on uncovered services from a choice of more than 350,000 providers. The marketplace is accessible through an employer-branded marketplace on corporate intranets, the Internet and a toll-free service. HealthAllies Plus offers preferred rates on both primary care and virtually all ancillary healthcare services.
The HealthAllies Plus suite of products offers an employer the opportunity to cut healthcare costs without sacrificing an employee's access to healthcare benefits. With HealthAllies Plus, an employer can lower existing insured ancillary benefit levels by reducing the number of capped benefits such as vision, dental or alternative care, or by restricting the formulary of its prescription drug plan, while continuing to provide an employee these benefits via HealthAllies Plus' point-of-care discounts.
For example, by replacing an insured optical plan with HealthAllies Plus, an average employer could save from $70 to $120 per employee per year depending on the cost of their insured plan. Employees continue to receive an optical care benefit through HealthAllies Plus at preferred rates, making their total out-of-pocket expenses comparable to those under a traditional insured benefits program.
The HealthAllies Plus suite of products can also serve as a stand-alone benefit to employees by providing savings of 10 to 60 percent on out-of-pocket expenses for frequently uncovered services such as laser eye surgery, in-vitro fertilization and orthodontics. Typically, HealthAllies Plus can provide employees with savings of $150 per year on out-of-pocket healthcare services. These employee savings can be positioned as an enhancement to employer benefits plans and/or as an indirect offset to increases to insurance contributions, co-pays and deductibles.
The HealthAllies' Plus suite of products includes:
- HealthAllies BenefitsPlus; a customizable benefits plan that complements existing insured benefits by providing employees with point-of-care savings of 10 to 60 percent on uncovered services from a choice of more than 350,000 providers. Depending on the aggressiveness of benefit redesign, employers can save up to 15 percent of their total benefits costs without materially affecting employee costs.
- HealthAllies PrimaryPlus; an affordable healthcare benefit for uninsured employees to access point-of-care savings on all primary and specialty care. This product is ideal for any company that wishes to develop a competitive edge in recruiting and retaining part-time or seasonal employees, but is unable to offer traditional health coverage.
- HealthAllies RetireePlus; a low-cost healthcare benefit for pre-Medicare retirees to access point-of-care savings on all healthcare services. This product is particularly valuable for employers that are eliminating or reducing retiree benefits program, or are considering early retirement programs.
- HealthAllies FlexPlus; which complements an employer's existing flexible spending account (FSA) program. Special tools, reminders and optional debit cards enable employees to plan and manage their out-of-pocket spending, thereby maximizing participation and utilization of the FSA. Through FlexPlus, employees make their healthcare dollars go further through more effective use of pre-tax spending, and employers save on payroll taxes through greater participation in FSA programs.
For online access, HealthAllies develops a customized employer-branded Web site and provides full technical support and maintenance. The site resides outside enterprise firewalls and does not require any integration with existing systems or support from corporate IT departments. The service can easily be implemented off-cycle or on-cycle with other employee benefits programs. Additionally, HealthAllies provides comprehensive marketing materials, full account management and support. With offline toll-free service and online access, HealthAllies Plus offers employees a total self-service solution.
HealthAllies provides its products directly to employers through a dedicated sales team and distribution partners including brokers, agents and insurance companies. Most recently, HealthAllies has developed partnerships with WebHealthy and Southern Health Systems to offer HealthAllies BenefitsPlus as a value-added enhancement to Southern Health System's HMO members by providing point-of-care savings on uncovered services through HealthAllies' online and offline marketplace.
"In these uncertain times, we set out to find a low-cost way to offer our corporate customers a safety net of cost savings that they could pass directly on to their employees," said Joseph Antonucci, CEO of Southern Health Systems. "The HealthAllies BenefitsPlus solution allows us to provide our corporate customers with many popular yet uncovered healthcare services for their employees at preferred rates. It is a winning combination for the employer, the employee and the physician."
The launch of this new suite of products marks a significant evolutionary step forward in HealthAllies' business model. Launched in 1999, the company has built an exceptional network of credentialed healthcare professionals, developed a robust, proprietary technology platform and demonstrated a strong consumer demand for the products. Through its suite of products, HealthAllies is uniquely positioned to address employers' and employees' healthcare needs today and in the future.
About HealthAllies
HealthAllies is a provider of consumer-driven health benefits that reduce healthcare costs and increase choice for employers and employees. The company offers a suite of healthcare products that provides employees with direct access to a marketplace of more than 350,000 providers at preferred rates of 10 to 60 percent, through a customized and branded marketplace on corporate intranets, the Internet and toll-free service. The HealthAllies online and offline marketplace offers preferred rates of 10 to 60 percent off primary care and virtually all specialties. HealthAllies suite of products complements existing healthcare benefits by enabling companies greater flexibility in making changes to their corporate healthcare plans, while dramatically reducing the cost to employees of out-of-pocket expenses for uncovered services. The HealthAllies suite of products consists of: HealthAllies BenefitsPlus for covered employees; HealthAllies PrimaryPlus for uncovered employees; HealthAllies RetireePlus for pre-Medicare retirees; and HealthAllies FlexPlus for flexible spending account programs. HealthAllies' financial partners include Idealab Capital Partners, American Express, GRP and Rho Management. For more information about HealthAllies, please log onto the Web site at www.healthallies.com