Presenting Your Group Health Plan Options to Your Employees:

Once you have decided that you want to offer a group health plan for your employees, you will need to decide how you want to present this offer to them. There are specific steps that you can take to ensure wider participation and greater understanding of your new group health plan options.

1. Meet with your group health insurance representative. Before you decide to present your options to your employees, it is a good idea to meet with your representative to ensure that you completely understand the options yourself. If possible, you should try to schedule a time where your representative will be available to meet with your employees for greater understanding.

2. Request documentation from your insurance company. You will need to have visual aids when you make your presentation. Your insurance company should be able to provide you with several copies of the explanation of benefits, different types of group health plan options and the type of coverage that your employees can expect. This documentation will assist you if you do not know the answer to a question an employee may have.

3. Schedule a meeting with your employees. This meeting should be scheduled far in advance so that everyone will be able to take advantage of it. Try to find a time during the workday where the vast majority of your employees will be able to attend. If this is a problem due to scheduling conflicts, you may need to have more than one meeting or divide the meetings into shifts.

4. Thoroughly review all documentation before your meeting. It is vital that you completely understand the group health plan that you will be offering your employees. Read all of the provided information and if possible, do extra research on different types of coverage in case your employees have extra questions. This is particularly important if your insurance representative will not be present for the meeting.

5. Create a questionnaire and pass it out one week before the meeting. This questionnaire can be used to assist your employees in deciding what kind of coverage they may need. Your insurance company may have a sample questionnaire that you can use, or you may need to create your own. Ask questions that are pertinent to specific kinds of coverage as well as different health conditions. You should ask your employees to fill out this questionnaire and turn it in before the meeting is due. It is a good idea to make this questionnaire anonymous so that you can avoid any discrimination problems.

6. Review the results of your employees’ questionnaires. Tabulate the results before your meeting is scheduled so that you can see what concerns are in the forefront for the majority of your employees. This will also assist you in determining if there are additional benefit riders that your employees may need on top of the regular insurance policy.

7. Meeting Day Arrives – get prepared. Before the meeting is held, make sure that there are refreshments. A happy atmosphere can go a long way towards making a meeting a pleasant events instead of a struggle. Line up the chairs and tables so that everyone will have a full view of your presentation. If you have additional visual aids, such as projectors or a video, get this equipment ready.

8. Preparation pays off. The lengths that you go to in making your group health plan easy to understand will pay off in the amount of employees that sign up for your group health plan. You’ll be ready to answer most of their questions and your meeting will be a resounding success.

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