Partner case study: HIPnation

The challenge

As an independent broker and lead advisor for HIPnation, Ben Butler worked with a diverse range of clients. While he mostly sold insurance plans to small businesses with 5-30 employees and to individuals, he also had a few larger-tier clients that were considered applicable large employers (ALEs) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA’s employer mandate requires ALEs to offer their full-time employees a health insurance plan that is affordable and meets minimum essential coverage or be subject to costly penalties.

However, Ben only sold Direct Primary Care (DPC)—a membership-based model of primary care where the member or employer contracts directly with a doctor—coupled with Sedera, a medical cost-sharing membership program. This posed a problem for his ALE clients because neither DPC nor Sedera is considered ACA-compliant health insurance. 

Ben needed something to supplement his DPC and Sedera plans that would make them an ACA-compliant option for ALEs. His first consideration was a health savings account (HSA).  However, because DPC isn’t a qualified high deductible health plan, it wouldn’t work with an HSA. 

ACA compliance wasn’t the only problem his clients were facing. The rising cost of healthcare was becoming unsustainable for many of his clients, so he needed a health benefit that would not only satisfy ACA requirements, but also keep costs low and provide better budgetary certainty.

The solution

In 2020, Ben’sclients had a new option for obtaining an ACA-compliant health benefit thanks to regulations regarding the individual coverage HRA (ICHRA). Ben immediately started researching the ICHRA health benefit to learn more. 

Ben learned that ICHRAs allow employers of all sizes to reimburse their employees, tax-free, for individual health insurance premiums and other qualifying medical expenses. As long as an employer offers an affordable allowance and the employee has an individual health insurance policy that meets minimum essential coverage, an ICHRA satisfies the employer mandate.

After his research, Ben felt confident that his ALE clients would benefit significantly from an ICHRA. Employers would be compliant with the ACA while offering greater flexibility to employees who weren’t as comfortable with alternative options like the DPC and Sedera plans. Instead, these employees could choose a more familiar individual health insurance policy from a state or federal marketplace and participate in the ICHRA. 

Also, because ICHRAs can be used to purchase individual health insurance nationwide,  Ben could suggest an ICHRA to his clients with remote and distributed teams. This gave the ICHRA a leg-up on DPC and Sedera plans, which are more regionally-focused.

Between the three types of health benefits Ben offered, employers could get major healthcare savings over traditional group health insurance and provide more coverage options to their employees.

After learning about the ICHRA, Ben needed to find a partner that could help his clients easily administer the health benefit. Upon comparing the top HRA administration platforms available, Ben was sold on PeopleKeep. 

After reading content on PeopleKeep’s website and working with his personalized benefits advisors, Ben felt PeopleKeep had the best reputation, software, and user interface out of the companies he considered for his clients. Considering all the factors, Ben and his team at HIPnation knew that partnering with PeopleKeep was a no-brainer.

The results

Over the past year of his partnership with PeopleKeep, Ben has referred specific clients to the ICHRA benefit. Client satisfaction with the ICHRA and PeopleKeep is at 100% Employers are administering the benefit easily, and Ben works with his clients to ensure their employees understand how the ICHRA works.

The ICHRA has been able to fill the gap that DPC and Sedera weren’t able to cover and offers significant cost savings. For instance, Ben has a client that is saving $30,000 annually over traditional group health insurance by offering an ICHRA. 

Its flexibility also makes it possible for clients to hire employees in states that don’t have DPC or Sedera coverage available. Most of Ben’s clients put their health benefit savings towards operational improvements or recruiting and retention efforts.

The ICHRA’s customization, geographic flexibility, unlimited allowance amounts, and unique employee classes make it more attractive to Ben and his clients. But most importantly, it gives Ben an ACA-compliant option to share with his clients that will save them money. 

Partnering with PeopleKeep has been a valuable addition to Ben’s business. The referral process and compensation payout schedule run smoothly, and Ben always knows who to reach out to on the PeopleKeep business development team if he has questions or concerns. 

His partnership is working so well that Ben is now looking into referring clients to PeopleKeep’s WorkPerks stipend administration software to provide them with even more reimbursement options, including employee wellness and remote work expenses. For Ben, as long as PeopleKeep continues to meet the needs of his clients, he’ll keep offering their personalized benefits solutions to as many clients as he can.