Medical and dental benefits .

[andresauto]

I'm thinking of offering medical and dental benefits for my employees. Does anyone currently offer them and are there any recommendations?

[Marksas]

We offer them and I'm sure it varies by state. It's a pain but I think to remain competitive it's a must. We pay for 75% of the employee only for a HSA (High Deductible) plan as the base plan. The employee has the option to upgrade to a traditional PPO plan or an Hybrid HMO plan as well as add their spouse or family. We also pay 100% for a LTD plan and a $30K Life & Accidental Death Plan. I use a third party company to manage it and shop the plans each year. It seems we have to switch health insurance companies about every 2 years. The forms are numerous as each company has it's own forms they want. We also offer Dental and Vision but at 100% cost to the employee.

The reason we pay 100% for the LTD is that as a self employed owner it is very expensive for me to purchase a plan outside the company. It is much cheaper to purchase it as a group plan. For what it would cost me on the outside I can provide all my employees a plan plus myself for less cost. I have about 15 employees on the plan.

We also offer a SEP Retirement plan that matches dollar for dollar up to 3%. If you run the numbers, or for us at least in Texas it cost me very little because of the reduced taxes and I am able to shelter funds for myself.

Be ready to spend considerable time set it all up. I use a third party provider to handle all the benefits as well as payroll processing. I tried ADP Total Source but found their fee structure a little expensive and they did not have a good import for Quickbooks, I also tried another company but the people where incompetent. Now with my new payroll/benefits company I go on-line to a web portal and enter the payroll, I can delegate this to another employee now and don't have to schedule vacation around pay dates. I can also enter it if need be while away from the shop. Last year I did it while diving in Honduras. The payroll company sends me a QB import file that has it all broken up into departments that I set up as well as the QB account numbers that I want various costs to hit. Actually QB integrated payroll does this well and it's easy. But now the payroll/benefits company has all my employee numbers and is able to shop for insurance much easier without me having to send them numbers and census information. I chose an outside company for future scale-ability as we grow and open up another location.

[Marksas]

Also let me add that most of the dental plans are not that good. We used to pay 100% for them but the employees rarely used it, that's why I made it optional. I feel the employees have to pay something to see the real benefit. If the employee is willing to kick in something then I want to help them also, if they don't care about it then I don't care about it for them.