Selling HealthPartners

New Jump Start Report Educates Clients

Starting August 1, your clients can receive a FREE Jump Start report that provides a snapshot of their workforce’s health, including areas of concern that need specific attention.

View sample Jump Start report.

About Jump Start
Jump Start allows members to take an online health assessment and then enjoy free enrollment in our award-winning 10,000 Steps® fitness program.
Studies show members who take the assessment and go on to complete an eight-week 10,000 Steps program reduce annual claims by an average of $280. This can favorably affect your clients’ renewal rates.

In addition, one in four individuals who takes the assessment is found to be at risk for diabetes or heart disease. Identifying these individuals early saves $3,000 to $5,000 in future annual claims because we’re able to take action to prevent or delay disease onset. This also favorably impacts your clients’ renewal rates while reducing worker absenteeism and improving productivity.

About The New Jump Start report
For each client, the new Jump Start report summarizes:

• How many employees and dependents have taken the assessment and joined the 10,000 Steps® program.
• The number of individuals specifically at-risk for diabetes or heart disease, and how many we have contacted to offer assistance.
• What health risk factors – such as smoking or stress – are prevalent in the workforce, and how we can help address them.

What YOU can do right now
To get this report, a client must have at least 50 employees and covered dependents participate in Jump Start. Your HealthPartners representative will contact you and produce a report when a client has reached this threshold.

What can you do in the meantime? Encourage your clients to aggressively promote Jump Start in the workplace. This will make the report and resulting action steps more useful to them.

To make promotion easy, direct your clients to the Jump Start page on our employer portal. It includes a ready-to-go employee email, plus flyers, posters and paycheck stuffers that you can download at your convenience. Review these items now!

To learn more please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

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Your clients already know and trust our medical solutions. So, if they’re ready to add a great, flexible dental plan to their benefits package, it makes sense to take a look at HealthPartners.

We offer a variety of voluntary and contributory plans for both large and small group clients. Our dental plans provide a flexible, cost-conscious solution, high quality care and choices that ensure satisfaction for both your clients and their employees.

Plus, when they choose both dental and medical coverage from HealthPartners, they get one carrier, one bill and one less hassle – that’s simplicity at its finest.

HealthPartners Dental Features and Benefits:

• Freedom to see any dentist: Members visit the facility and dentist that best meets their needs.
• Access: We’re the state’s largest PPO network with 1,600 providers — that’s almost 30% larger than the competition.
• Deep discounts: Clients and their employees save an average of 15% on their dental care.
• Great pricing: A 30-year history of stable, competitive rates.
• Flexibility: A wide variety of benefit options for both large and small employers wishing to fully insure or self-insure their dental plans.
• Exceptional local service: Fast, accurate claims processing and 9 of 10 calls to Member Services get resolved on the first call.
• Orthodontic discounts: All members – whether they have ortho coverage or not, are eligible for a 20% discount on ortho services through are partnership with Orthodontic Care Specialists.
  
  

According to a 2005 purchaser survey commissioned by the National Association of Dental Plans, dental coverage is the third most important employee benefit behind health and retirement. In Minnesota approximately 70% of full-time employees are offered dental benefits.

Single-digit dental trend has kept coverage affordable for employers and employees, but finding the true value in dental plans may be the key to future sales. Especially since the monetary value of dental plans has declined for enrollees over the past 20 years.

While the maximum benefit level on dental plans has remained flat for the past two decades, the cost of dental procedures has doubled. For example, a crown used to cost around $450 – today it’s closer to $900. A $1,000 maximum benefit doesn’t go as far as it used to.

The key is figuring out what you can do as a trusted advisor to help your clients and their employees get the most value from their plan. Here are a few things to consider when comparing dental plans:

1. How comprehensive is the network? 
   A big network is only of value when it provides discounted savings.  A small network without convenient provider locations, even with deep discounts, isn’t the best value for your clients.
2. What discounts have been negotiated with providers? Do they negotiate discounts with specialists?
   You might be surprised to know that many of our local competitors don’t.
3. What U&C levels are used by carriers?
   U&C levels vary from carrier-to-carrier, are frequently misunderstood and can have a significant impact on member cost.
4. Do carriers pay for services under the same benefit levels?
   One carrier may include only fillings as a Basic Service, while another includes endodontics, periodontics and oral surgery. These plans would appear to be identical under the standard 100/80/50 definition, but a consumer would see a significant difference in their coverage level.
5. Do plans treat waiting periods equally? 
   Are the same services subject to the same waiting periods on all quotes? Does the plan have a one chance enrollment with stiff waiting periods for any ‘late entrants’?
6. Are there barriers to preventive care? 
   Sealants and fluoride treatments have been well-documented as important tools in establishing good, long-term oral health for children and adults.  Applying deductibles to these services or covering at a Basic Service level serves only to discourage patients from getting the most appropriate preventive care, which likely will lead to longer term dental health complications and increased expenses.
7. What other value-adds and discounts do they offer on services like Orthodontics?
   A 20% discount on Orthodontic care can mean a savings of $1,000 – that’s a significant value-add.

HealthPartners is the highest-ranked, Minnesota-based plan according to the U.S. News & World Report. The rankings are based on comparisons of clinical quality, member satisfaction and NCQA accreditation for more than 450 commercial, Medicare and Medicaid plans across the nation.

Do your clients know that HealthPartners’ commercial plan is the top-rated plan in Minnesota and is ranked among the top five in the region? Or that:

• Our Medicare plan is the 11th highest ranked plan nationally.
• We scored higher than the national average on wellness measures for diabetes, depression, asthma care and cancer screening.
• HealthPartners received the highest ranking in Minnesota on overall member satisfaction.

As of 1/1/07, HealthPartners will no longer be offering a fourth-quarter deductible carryover. This change is mandated for small group and EZ plans and is standard for large fully insured and self-insured plans. Large groups may add this option back in at an increased premium. The potential savings for this change is 2.25% on a $1,000 deductible plan.

 To learn more please contact your HealthPartners Sales Executive.

We’re not moving, but our address is changing. On June 26, 2006, the City of Bloomington changed the address of our corporate headquarters to:

HealthPartners
8170 33rd Avenue South
Bloomington. Minnesota 55425

Please update your records accordingly even though mail will be forwarded for 18 months following the change. Our P.O. Box address will remain the same (P.O. Box 1309, Minneapolis, MN 55440).

To make sure that you’re getting the credit you deserve for CE classes, please be sure to include your license number on your certificate when you hand the certificate to us for signature. We are required to provide this information to Minnesota Department of Commerce after each class we offer to you. This is a change in policy and we want to make sure all of your credits are accounted for. Thank you!

Here's what you should know if retirees from employer groups or clients ask you about the Social Security Administration outreach mailing they recently received.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has implemented quality assurance checks to ensure those that have been granted Low-income Subsidy (LIS) status are eligible for it. Approximately 13% of the LIS enrollees nationwide will receive a letter from SSA asking them to participate in a phone interview.

Information needed for the phone interviews include:

1. Personal identification items (e.g., Social Security and Medicare cards)
2. Family size and household expenses information
3. Income
4. Other financial resources (e.g., bank statements, life insurance policies, retirement savings accounts, etc.)

Enrollees are asked to fully participate in these phone interviews.

We’re committed to providing access to the providers your clients demand. Our Open Access network now includes approximately 31,000 providers regionally, including 12,000 specialists. Our alliance with CIGNA gives members access to 470,000 providers nationwide. This gives us one of the largest provider networks in the country. Maybe that’s why in U.S. News & World Reports’ current rankings consumers rank us highest in Minnesota for access to care.

Find a network provider quickly and simply by conducting a Provider Search.

Our network continues to grow.  Recent additions include:

Medical – Minnesota
Broadway Medical Center - Alexandria
Broadway Medical Center – Parkers Prairie
Luedtke, Warren H., MD – Saint Cloud
Mille Lacs Family Clinic - Hillman
Mille Lacs Family Clinic - Isle
Mille Lacs Family Clinic - Onamia
Mille Lacs Family Clinic - Garrison
RiverPlace Clinic, Inc - Monticello
Riverside Family Physicians, PA - Minneapolis
Riverview Clinic - Red Lake Falls

Dental – Minnesota
Dale, Patrick C.,  DDS, PA – Maple Grove
Silver Bay Family Dental – Silver Bay

Medical – South Dakota
Avera Harrisburg Medical Clinic, Harrisburg (Formerly Schramm Medical)

Important Contacts
Our Group Medical Plans
Our Group Dental Plans
Our Achieve ^SM Health Improvement Programs
Our CareSpan ^SM Disease Management Programs
Direct Connect to Broker Portal
Network Updates