The Insider

November 2008

Volume 1, Issue 2

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Special

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Dear HealthConnect User

An important trend that we are seeing across all of our markets, which is starting to impact our clients, is the movement toward offering bundled employee benefit solutions to small and mid-sized businesses.

Specifically, payroll companies are aggressively entering the health brokerage business and competing by offering a complete range of services; not only health and benefits but also payroll, 401k, HR Compliance, and more. They are positioning themselves versus our health agency clients by offering a full suite of services, as compared to typical agents that offer a “point” solution for health only.

We believe this is a formidable long-term threat to our agency clients. Two national payroll companies collectively service 7 out of 10 small businesses in the United States, so our clients have an embedded competitor in 70% of their client base. They are gaining meaningful traction in the marketplace and are growing rapidly.

How can an independent agent respond? We believe the first step is recognizing the competitive advantage you offer your clients, specifically, your local knowledge of health plans and local servicing capabilities, which typically compares favorably to the national payroll companies that have sales people who do not have a vested interest in a long term relationship and centralized, remote servicing of groups.

To respond to the issue of a full range of integrated HR and employee benefit services, we have been investing aggressively in HRConnect, our online human resource and benefits administration system that is integrated with our quoting system. A primary focus of HRConnect is benefits administration, allowing your clients to access online reference information about their benefit plans, including benefit plan descriptions, forms, rates and contribution structures and similar items. HRConnect also allows the employer to track all important employee information, communicate to employees, and perform basic HR tasks.

In addition, and most important, HRConnect can be enhanced to offer fully integrated payroll, COBRA administration, POP and FSA, employee assistance plans, HR compliance and more. These services can be purchased separately or as a bundle, depending on your clients needs, and any sales are commissionable to the agent (15% lifetime). All services are also fully integrated, meaning there is no duplicate data entry and your clients can have a single system versus a myriad of different vendors that deliver their services through different systems. We continue to invest aggressively in HRConnect and believe it will offer our clients an important tool as the trend toward full service, bundled solutions continues.

To learn more about HRConnect, click on the link to view the video or contact your GA or HealthConnect representative.

Sincerely,

Peter Everett
President/CEO

HealthConnect Systems

president's message

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The Product Spotlight section, which will regularly highlight one of our products in more detail, will also enable us to keep you updated on new products and new features of our existing products.

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Partner Spotlight will regularly focus on one of our partners whose services we make available to you through our quoting system and HRConnect.

HealthConnect has recently added Total Administrative Services Corporation (TASC) as a COBRA administration partner through its HRConnect, an online, integrated human resource management system.

In business since 1975, TASC offers administration and service for a variety of products to small businesses. TASC has become a third-party administration leader and even received an Honorable Mention in Benefits Selling magazine’s 2007 Readers’ Choice Awards, beating out several large TPAs.

As our COBRA partner, TASC handles processing of COBRA elections, verification of continued eligibility, notices of qualifying events, and rate and benefit changes, recordkeeping, billing and collection of COBRA premium payments. Employers who sign up for COBRA services through HRConnect will also get a dedicated TASC account representative to answer their inquiries or concerns.

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Having trouble using a feature in the quoting system or HRConnect? Tips and Tricks section will provide you with a quick "how to." 

Do you know how to edit a plan in your small group quoting portal?

Follow these simple steps:

East Coast clients:

1. Login to your small group quoting account.

2. Select a previously quoted company from the dropdown menu on the left. If you are quoting a new company, click on Add Company and fill out the necessary fields. Then click on Plan Wizard on the right (under Quoting Tools).

3. Select your plans and click Next.

4. Select your ancillary plans and click Next.

5. On the proposal generation page, you will see a list of plans you selected with a number of icons in front of each plan (task column).

6. To edit a plan, click on the pencil icon. A new window will open up Plan Editor. Here you can make changes to plan details and rates, benefits and drug card, and census.

7. When you have made your changes, click on Save and Close. The window will close and changes will be reflected immediately. Continue with your proposal as usual.

West Coast Clients:

1. Login to your small group quoting account.

2. Select a previously quoted company from the list of the last ten quotes or select it from the drop-down menu next to Recall Saved Group. If you are quoting a new company, select Quote New Group, then hit Next and fill out the necessary fields.

3. On the Review Group Data page, under Current Plan Information, select the current plan effective date, then select the current plan from the drop-down menu, add RAF value and click on the Add button.

4. Below the plan that you have just added, you will see a link Edit/Update Benefits. Click on the link. Make changes and click Next.

5. Continue with your proposal as usual.

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Want to know what your fellow brokers are saying about our products and how they helped them? Read it here, in the So We Heard section.

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HealthConnect in the News section will keep you up-to-date on our new developments, partnerships or changes and will include our reference in the media.

healthconnect

in the news

Beere & Purves and HealthConnect celebrate 3rd anniversary of working together

Beere & Purves, a premiere General Agency in California, and HealthConnect, a leading online network for buyers and sellers of health insurance and employee benefits, have recently celebrated their 3^rd anniversary of working together. Beere & Purves's relationship with HealthConnect began when Beere & Purves transitioned from a competing system, which was managed well and resulted in minimal transition issues for their broker clients.

During those years, HealthConnect worked closely with Beere & Purves and their brokers to implement enhancements to the quoting system to create efficiency. To maintain its reputation for offering its brokers only the best, Beere & Purves also offers their brokers access to HRConnect, an online integrated HR management and employee benefit service.

“HealthConnect has enabled us to continue to offer innovative products to our brokers,” said Peter Cella, President of Beere & Purves. “We are pleased with our relationship and are looking forward to expanding it in the future.”

“Beere & Purves relationship with their brokers and their consistent effort to bring quality products and services to their brokers proved instrumental in making this partnership successful,” said Peter Everett, president & CEO of HealthConnect. “We are hoping to continue building on this success.”

HealthConnect Systems Adopts Innovative Green Benefits Program for Clients and Employees

November 13, 2008 - HealthConnect Systems, the leading online network for buyers and sellers of health insurance and employee benefits, has launched an innovative green initiative in which the company and its employees work together to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions required to operate the company to zero. HealthConnect will also provide incentives and assistance for clients that would like to do the same.  

HealthConnect estimates that operation of the company results in 320 tons of CO2 emissions per year. To reduce this to zero, the company will implement initiatives that reduce the amount of gasoline, electricity and paper consumption from the company’s operations as well as provide financial incentives to its employees to adopt environmentally friendly practices in their personal lives. The company and its employees will fund greenhouse gas reduction projects in an amount necessary to offset the remaining CO2 emissions of the company. Click here to read more.

HealthConnect Partners with Total Administrative Services Corporation

July 2008 - HealthConnect is pleased to announce that it has added Total Administrative Services Corporation (“TASC”) as a COBRA and FSA administration partner through its HRConnect, an online, integrated human resource management system.

TASC’s COBRA compliance services are now fully integrated onto HRConnect, enabling users to process COBRA qualifying events with just a few steps. HR administrators can now hand off the administrative duties to TASC representatives, who will take care of processing COBRA elections, verification of continued COBRA eligibility, notices of qualifying events, rate and benefit changes, correct forms, recordkeeping, and billing and collection of COBRA premium payments. Click here to read more.

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Your opinion counts! This section will feature a quarterly poll to find out your opinion on our products, enhancements, announcements, tips and our communication to you so we can continue to improve.

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Copyright ©2008 HealthConnect                                                                                         877.805.2828  | newsletter@healthconnectsystems.com