The Ultimate Health Plan™
A smarter approach
With unsustainable, skyrocketing healthcare costs crippling both individuals and
businesses throughout the United States, our team at MyMedicalShopper has been
working hard to develop a solution to the problem. In collaboration with some of the most
intelligent, progressive, customer-oriented experts in the healthcare industry, we have
designed a health plan strategy that minimizes the cost of premiums, maximizes benefit
coverage, incentivizes employees to make educated healthcare purchases, and
effectively aligns employee behavior with their employers’ financial priorities.
Here’s an overview of the Ultimate Health Plan™:
Step 1: Move your health plan to a high-deductible health plan (HDHP), with the maximum
allowed deductible. In 2017 that amount will be $6,550 for individual plans and $13,100 for
family plans. We recommend maximizing your deductible because it will minimize your
health insurance premiums.
Step 2: Add a health savings account (HSA) to your plan. An HSA is a tax-deferred savings
account that can be used for any healthcare expense, and it can be used to pay the first
portion of out-of-pocket deductible expenses. The maximum HSA contribution allowed in
2017 will be $3,400 for individual plans and $6,750 for family plans. An HSA can be funded
by the employer, the employee, or a combination of both, up to the maximum allowed
amount each year. At the end of the year, the employee keeps the unused balance of the
HSA, and continues to roll over the balance from year to year. Once the employee reaches
the age of 65, any remaining balance in the HSA can be withdrawn at a tax-deferred rate,
treated similarly as a 401(k).
When you give your employees a health savings account and contribute the maximum
allowable amount, you accomplish three important things:
1. You remove the stress of out-of-pocket medical expenses for the first portion of
your employees’ deductibles.
2. You incentivize your employees to minimize their healthcare expenses, because
they get to keep the unused balance of their HSA contribution every year in what
is essentially an additional retirement account.
3. You reward good health! Healthy employees end up paying nothing out-ofpocket, because their HSA covers the first large chunk of their deductibles. In
addition, your healthy employees get the opportunity to grow their HSAs as an
added bonus for being healthy! Also, for your employees that do incur significant
medical expenses, their HSAs cover the first portion of those expenses, so you’re
taking good care of them too.
When you combine the motivating effect of an HSA with the cost, quality, and
convenience information provided instantly by MyMedicalShopper, the result is educated,
empowered employees who have the new ability to take control of their healthcare costs.
Step 3: Add a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) to your plan. An HRA is essentially
a tax-free account funded by the employer that can be used to pay for out-of-pocket
medical expenses. The amount put into this account is at the discretion of the employer,
and any unused balance at the end of the year is kept by the employer. We recommend a
dynamic HRA funding plan—one that rewards your employees for responsible medical
care shopping.
Start your employees with $4,350 in their HRA for family plans, and for every medical
expense they incur that falls in the lowest 60% of prices for that particular procedure, add
20% of the value of that expense back into their HRA. (MyMedicalShopper makes this part
super easy for your employees!) By using a dynamic HRA funding plan, you can incentivize
your employees to continue shopping intelligently and keep costs low. Because there is a
financial gap between the HSA/HRA and the top of the deductible, your employees are
highly motivated to minimize medical expenses to avoid personal exposure to out-ofpocket expenses. However, by rewarding smart shopping with additional HRA funding, you
can minimize your employees’ personal exposure, and even eliminate it altogether.
The key to HUGE savings: MyMedicalShopper is essential to optimize your health plan!
When your employees have our tool in their hands, they will become empowered
healthcare consumers. Immediately, they will be
able to shop for low-cost, high-quality care, track
TheUltimateHealthPlan™
the status of their deductibles, and minimize the
overall cost of their healthcare. MyMedicalShopper
is a truly frictionless tool that doesn’t require
intensive management of your employees’
behavior. They simply open the app, make easy,
educated decisions about their medical care, and
$13,100
feel good about it. The tool makes it easy for
patients to discuss the cost and quality of
$2000
procedures, allowing doctors to care for both their
patients’ physical health and their financial well$11,100
being. With MyMedicalShopper, your employees
will have all the information and the new ability to
$4,350
shop for their care based
on cost, quality, and
$6,750
convenience. The result
is less money spent outof-pocket for the
employee, better
$6,750
coverage, and reduced
overall costs to your
organization!