2023-2024 Health Insurance Plan Selection Advice Process

You can jump straight to the summary of the final options. The specific plans available to you depends on your home state, so make sure to check your Justworks account. This post mainly deals with the Sept 2023 selection process.

It’s that time of year!

Benefits selection is a 2-step process. First we (the company) has to decide what plans to offer by August 31st, then each employee chooses among the options by Sept. 28.

Plan costs and coverage change every year. So, it’s important to give yourself enough time to review your options and make your selections.

Important dates:

• Deadline to select plans—Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 11:59pm EST

• Open enrollment for employees—Tuesday, September 19, 2023 to Thursday, Sep 28, 2023

• New coverage takes effect—Wednesday, November 1, 2023

• Deductible resets—January 1, 2024

What about FSAs and HSAs?

FSAs and HSAs renew at the start of the calendar year. No need to worry about that now, we’ll reach out when it’s time.

Summary of 2022-23 Plans

Our current offerings, for comparison:

Summary of Proposed Options

• Add new Benefits-eligible Interns class: Applies to full-time interns who are working with us NOT during the summer and for more than 90 days.

• Medical

• : Max 6 options

• Add Aetna G1 and Aetna C2 (EPO) plans as new health insurance options. C2 is an EPO plan, which means it’s a cheaper, but there is no out-of-network coverage.

• Keep all 4 options from last year

• Dental

• : Max 3 options

• We have at least one person on each of our 3 plans, so if we want to change them, we’d have to decide to retire the one plan.

• Vision

• : Max 2 options

• Same story with vision. We have at least one person on each of the 2 we currently offer.

• There is a new (seemingly better) MetLife plan we can choose this year. Pls see below, because it would take a decision if we want to switch to it.

Options for Medical

You may recall that in 2021, I compared SWA and Estee Lauder health plans with what was available in Justworks and picked 4 plans, and then last year, we re-upped them without change.

This year, I’m proposing to add two additional health plans, for a total of 6. I don’t know whether these new additions are going to work better for anyone, but we have the ability to offer a maximum of 6. Here are the 6 propose (and I am totally open to using our two open slots for plans other than the 2 that I picked).

There is a LOT to consider in looking at the medical plan options. For the definition of terms like PPO, EPO, etc., please see this handy glossary from Justworks. Here is a comparison chart:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LsGDJNokrj4YSlPckABbry8nBsMC7-ldkZsbVj0trcI

Each of the 6 plans have a detailed factsheet, available on Drive.

Options for Dental

As originally proposed:

As revised with input from Chuck Lin Robin Neri :

Options for Vision

There is a new MetLife plan on offer, which seems comparable but slightly better than the current option we have from Aetna. To offer the new plan, either everyone current on Aetna would need to switch to one of the other plans, or the person on the higher-premium MetLife plan would need to choose to move to another plan.

As revised w input from Erika Parkins

2024 Company Contribution Amounts

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1wevtDszt6MwZLS8f3aYeGxmD8C7BuVWu

As a reminder: here’s how we do the employer contribution. I made this up, and it’s subject to debate and revision, if needed:

The company pays a flat contribution to the health plans regardless of which plan you choose. The flat contribution is determined by :

1. Full-time employees: The amount required to make the cost of the “base” plan $50 for a single-person tier, and 50% of the family tiers of the “base” plan. The “base” plan is the lowest cost PPO plan.

2. In 2024, if we include the EPO plan, we would be contributing the full amount of the EPO plan for the singles

3. Part-time (30-hour) employees: The amount equivalent to 50% of the single person “base” plan

For dental, we pay 50% regardless of plan, and we don’t contribute to vision plans.

FINAL Submission