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Employee Health Care Benefits

Most employers offer some form of employee health care benefits. Depending on the options and the cost your employer is willing to cover, employee benefits can represent a huge job perk. Health care benefits may include medical insurance, employee assistance programs, disease management and wellness programs and vision and dental insurance. Employers may offer a combination of these products to their employees.

  1. Medical Insurance

    • Medical insurance is the primary health benefit offered to employees. Usually employees can choose from several different group health plans. Often companies offer several types of plans including health maintenance organizations, preferred provider organizations and point of service plans with varying deductibles, co-insurance and co-pay amounts. Employers typically pay most of the premiums with employees covering a small percentage of the cost. Medical insurance plans are available through major carriers such as regional Blue Cross groups, United HealthCare, Aetna and Cigna as well as smaller local health insurers.

    Employee Assistance Programs

    • Employee assistance programs are often part of the medical or behavioral health care benefits. If not, companies may purchase stand-alone EAPs for their employees, offered to all employees and their dependents, regardless if they elected medical benefits. EAPs provide short-term assistance to help employees resolve their personal, legal or financial issues. Services are telephonic and may contain a face-to-face counseling component of a defined number of sessions. Most often, EAPs provide referrals to community resources and other services to help resolve their issues.

    Disease Management and Wellness Programs

    • Medical health insurance carriers may offer disease management and wellness programs as part of their coverage or as an add-on benefit. Employers may also contract with health management companies to offer these programs to their employees. The goal of DM and wellness programs is to teach individuals with certain conditions how to manage and understand their condition so they can improve their health. Wellness programs aim to encourage lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or quitting smoking. The conditions managed through a disease management program include diabetes, heart disease, asthma and pain management, among others.

    Vision and Dental Insurance

    • Sometimes integrated with medical benefits, dental and vision insurance are other standard health care benefits. If not integrated, employers may choose to offer dental and vision as stand-alone benefits with separate vendors and premiums. This lets the employee decide if they want to elect these benefits. Vision care, at a minimum, includes an annual eye exam and partial coverage for eyeglasses or contacts. Dental benefits, at a minimum, include twice-yearly teeth cleaning and other preventive care. Additional services such as crowns and orthodontics may are additional services that your company may or may not offer employees.

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