Page 40 - Delaware Medical Journal - September/October 2020

THESE HRAS CAN HELP YOU TRANSFORM EMPLOYEE COVERAGE
Sharon Ruth
Unintended regulations that spun
out of the Affordable Care Act
(ACA) put a halt to the practice of reimbursing, even penalizing employers who wanted to help their employees. These regulations left employers looking to offer alternatives to traditional group health plan coverage that would still allow them
to reimburse medical expenses to their employees.
Allow me to introduce the individual- coverage health reimbursement account (ICHRA), which changes the game for those employers looking to provide
health benefits to their employees. It represents a new, more modern model of employer-sponsored health insurance.
As the name implies, ICHRA is based on reimbursing employees for insurance rather than buying it for them. At a high level, the way an ICHRA works is very simple:
1 Employers design their plan, including defining which employees are eligible and establishing reimbursement limits.
2 Employees purchase the individual plans they want (including through the exchanges established by the ACA).
3 Employees submit claims for reimbursement.
4 Employers reimburse employees for the valid claims.
Your practice would offer employees
a monthly allowance, giving the employee the ability to choose and
pay for individual coverage and other qualified expenses, and you reimburse them up to their allowance amount. By
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Del Med J | September/October 2020 | Vol. 92 | No. 5