Blue Shield Q3-2018 Small Business Updates

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Blue Shield announced updates for the Small Business market (1-100 employees). Below you’ll find the highlights and resources you’ll need to serve your clients.

Updates

Renewals Through September 2018 Are Now Available

• Manage your third quarter 2018 small group renewals now to get ahead of the game.
• Make group-level changes through the Small Group Online Renewal (SGOR) tool.
• Visit the Blue Shield Small Business Renewal Center on Broker Connection for all your renewal needs.

Q3 Rate Pass

• Blue Shield’s statewide average for the compounded year-over-year rate change for renewals is a 3.3% increase (3.5% for PPO/2.5% for HMO). The Average Quarterly Medical Rate Actions chart is below.
• Groups can reduce their premiums by 3% to 11% by switching from Full PPO plans to Tandem PPO plans. Changing from an HMO plan to a Trio HMO plan can reduce premiums by 6% to 32%.

Note: The above are averages only; rate actions can vary significantly by plan and rating region. Each customer will also experience customer-specific impact based on their demographics, in terms of the aging from one renewal to the next, as well as a possible increase in billable members for subscribers with more than three children, where one or more ages to 21 or over and starts being charged.

Specialty Coverage Promotions

• Small Business Bundled Savings program offers a 5% discount for groups adding dental and/or vision coverage to new or existing small business medical plans.
• Earn $10 per net new member for all of 2018 when you enroll members in a dental, vision, and/or life plan with the Specialty Bonus. Applies with or without Blue Shield medical plans and voluntary specialty coverage.

Small Business Submissions Made Easier

• Relaxed participation guidelines have been extended through September 2018, requiring only 25% employee participation for groups with five or more enrolled employees for medical, dental, vision and life insurance plans. Relaxed participation applies to Off Exchange plans only and does not apply to mirror plans. Download the flyer.
• Blue Shield now has a simple Small Business Multiple Subscriber Change Spreadsheet form that can be used for subscriber-level plan changes during renewal. Easily submit all subscriber renewal changes for a group on this one form, rather than submitting Individual Subscriber Change Request forms for all enrollees or by making each change through Employer Connection Plus.
• New Q3 Master Group Application and Employee Enrollment forms are now available.

Resources

• What’s New for Q2-2018 quick reference guide.
• What’s New for Q3-2018 quick reference guide.
• Pediatric dental and vision FAQs.
• Trio Conversion brochure.

Questions?
Contact the small group experts at 800.696.4543 or info@claremontcompanies.com.