Health Cash Plans
A health cash plan allows an individual to receive cash payments that cover the price of everyday healthcare costs. This kind of plan will cover optical and dental care, as well as physiotherapy.
Health cash plans can also be tailored to include more varied benefits. They can be employee or employer-funded as part of a corporate plan.
First hitting the market in the 19th century, health cash plans were originally provided by charitable or non-profit organisations. Formed before the creation of the NHS in 1948, this system helped employees to pay for their various healthcare needs.
Healthcare cash plans are policies that instead of covering you for unforeseen events like most other types of insurance, help you pay for the cost of routine healthcare such as going to the dentist, opticians or the physio.
They are totally different to private medical insurance as they will typically cover pre-existing conditions and no GP referral is needed to claim. Your employees would pay for their treatment and claim the cost up to the limits of cover through the health plan provider.
Receipts need to be dated usually with the name of the employee and details of the treatment and cost visible along with the details of the treatment provider and the receipt needs to read “paid.”
Most health plan providers now offer an online portal for members where they can not only make a claim but also access health and wellbeing tools that will help them take control of their health and wellbeing.
A company health plan is deemed a benefit in kind by HMRC and so a P11D form will need to be completed for employees on cover. Health and wellbeing plans typically run on a rolling contract so that employees can be added and removed on a monthly basis.
There are usually multiple levels of cover that can be selected and so if you have multiple employee gradings you can bespoke your plan according to seniority or length of service.
Some employers will offer a health plan once probation has been completed, others will offer this benefit to new employees as part of their induction into the business.
The Benefits Of Health Cash Plans
A properly integrated health cash plan can empower your employees to make positive changes to their lifestyle.
Providing your employees access to a cash plan can help you to attract the best talent. Offering a cash plan to your potential candidate pool to differentiate yourself amongst what can be a competitive market. It shows that you are a caring employer and will help attract high calibre candidates for your vacant roles.
A health plan can help reduce the cost of recruitment and attract high calibre candidates. A well performing health cash plan should help support your business strategy and ultimately your growth.
Retaining good employees can save you both time and money. Having trained your employees and provided all managerial support they need to feel both valued and respected a cash plan will demonstrate your commitment to staff health and wellbeing.
It can also cover some existing costs such as:
Money towards eye tests and glasses for VDU users
The cost of an Employee Assistant package
Flu jabs and vaccinations
Gym membership discounts
Health cash plans can help provide discounts to local gyms, advice on healthy sleeping patterns and offer lots of information on small changes that can have a huge impact long term on both physical and mental health.
Employee Support and Counselling
Recent press coverage has highlighted limited access to counselling currently available via the NHS. Work-related stress anxiety or depression accounts for over half of all working days lost due to ill health in Great Britain.
In total, 15.4 million working days were lost in 2017/18 because of the condition, up from 12.5 million the previous year. This equates to 57.3 per cent of the 26.8 million workdays lost to ill health according to figures released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Many cash plans include a comprehensive employee assistance programme that will provide employees easy access to telephone counselling and or face to face counselling along with financial and legal advice.
How To Get A Health Cash Plan
You can purchase a health cash plan directly from a provider or you can choose to use a health insurance specialist to help you understand the differences between provider plans and to help you integrate the plan into the workplace providing engagement at launch and throughout the year.
If you would like to find out more about the service provided by Pegasus Benefits, then visit our contact form by using the button below.