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Blue Access for Employers

Spending Accounts & the Deductible

BlueEdgeSM allows you to give your employees a Spending Account option to help them pay for qualified health care expenses. One option is to establish a Health Care Account for each employee with employer funds. The other option is a Health Savings Account, which can be set up with employer funds, employee funds or both.

Health Care Account

With the BlueEdge plan, your company sets aside a specific amount of money in a Health Care Account for each employee each benefit year.

Here's how the Health Care Account works:

  • The account pays for the member's covered health care claims until the balance is depleted. These claims are applied to meeting the deductible.
  • Preventive care services are covered at 100 percent in-network even before the deductible is met, so these claims are not deducted from the Health Care Account.
  • BlueEdge provides a seamless approach to claims processing—paying claims automatically from the plan or the PPO benefit plan.
  • Your employees do not pay for services up front or submit claims for reimbursement.
  • You only fund claims as they are paid, so unused account balances remain part of your company's cash flow.
  • Funds roll over year to year as long as the employee remains in the plan.
  • If the employee leaves the plan, the funds stay with the employer.

Health Savings Account

BlueEdge HSA is compatible with Health Savings Accounts (HSA), which are funds that your employees can use to pay for qualified health care expenses.

Here's how a Health Savings Account works:

  • The account can be funded by the employer, the employee or both, but the account is owned by the employee. (There is a maximum amount that can be contributed annually.)
  • Funds in an HSA are completely portable so if your employee changes jobs or stops working, the funds remain with him/her.
  • There are no "use it or lose it" rules like there are with Flexible Spending Accounts—unspent money stays in the HSA from year to year.
  • A separate trustee administers the HSA (not Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois).
  • HSA funds can be invested in interest bearing accounts.
  • Employer contributions are not subject to FICA taxes and employee contributions are tax deductible. Amounts distributed from the account are not taxable as long as they are used to pay for qualified health care expenses.

Deductible

We offer HSA plans with either an embedded or aggregate deductible. These deductibles are defined as follows:

Aggregate Deductible
If "Family" coverage is selected, the family deductible amount must be satisfied before any benefits are available under the HSA plan. The family deductible amount may be satisfied by one participant or a combination of two or more participants.

Embedded Deductible
The individual Deductible amount must be satisfied by every Participant covered, each Calendar year.  If Dependents are covered, all charges applied to the Individual Deductible amount will be applied toward the Family Deductible amount. When the Family Deductible is reached, no further individual Deductibles will have to be satisfied for the remainder of that Calendar Year. No Participant will contribute more than the Individual Deductible amount to the Family Deductible amount.

Learn More About BlueEdge

BlueEdge Product Summary
BlueEdge Benefits
Spending Accounts & the Deductible
Resources
BlueEdge FAQs