Prescription medication – most everyone, at one time or another, requires prescription drugs. Maybe it’s just for the occasional bacterial infection or you require it for ongoing chronic care. Either way, you know how expensive prescription drugs can be!
Many employers offer an Extended Health Care plan to their employees and share the cost of the plan. Then, when your employee goes to the pharmacy and pays for their prescription, they may provide a drug card (depending on the plan) that directly charges your insurance carrier for a portion of the expense (often @50-80%) and the employee pays the remaining 20%.
If you’re the lucky employee with an employee benefits plan, then you didn’t have to pay for the entire expense! However, it’s still a good idea for employees to shop around and be a wise consumer. Otherwise, both the employer AND employee-portion of the benefits premium will likely increase – directly hitting everyone in the pocketbook.
Inform your employees to be a wise shopper to help keep costs down:
- shop around – drug prices and dispensing fees vary from pharmacy to pharmacy
- try generic – depending on your plan, generic drugs are less expensive than brand name. Essentially the same drug – just less expensive.
Employers always try to control costs but employees can do their part too.
Interested in exploring other employee benefit options or providing a group retirement plan?
Contact ENCOMPASS Benefits & HR Solutions.
