Aetna HDHP/Health Savings Account (HSA) – January Costs

---

Happy Groundhog Day!

Can a Federal Employee save money by switching his family of four to a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) / Health Savings Account (HSA)?

Here’s the first update.

As mentioned here before, at the FEHB ‘New Year‘, my family switched from Blue Cross Basic to Aetna HDHP.   When both kids caught the flu and had to visit the Doctor, I took a deep breath.  Thankfully they are both fine and the visits were not as costly as I had feared.

January health care spending follows:

Health Expense	BCBS – Jan 2012	Aetna HDHP – Jan 2013
HC Premium	-$285.42	-$227.22
Premium Rebate	–	Not yet seen
Dr. Visits	–	-$141.21
Dentist Visits (x3)	-$362.00	$0 (!)
Lab	-$9.39	–
Rx	–	-$59.51
Chiropractor	-$125.00	–
TOTAL	-$781.81	-$427.94

…Looks like we’re ahead by over $300 so far.

 Notes:

•  Table assumes all costs are After Tax (salary deferrals for Health Care Premiums, FSA/HSA funds used for all Health Care expenses).
• I have only received paper bills/”Statements of Benefit”- these expenses have not hit mint.com yet.
•  We did not switch plans until January 13th, so it was closer to half of a month.
•  No name-brand drugs yet…stand by for rough seas next month!
•  The ‘Top Line’ cost for each Doctor visit was ~$110.  I guess this is what you pay if you walked in off the street uninsured- We paid the ‘wholesale’ Aetna price of ~$70/visit.  Not as bad as we feared it would be- this is only about $40/visit more expensive than our old BCBS co-pays.
• No co-pays for preventative dental care, did not have to switch dentists(!).
• Have not seen any dreaded billing errors…yet.  This is one of my main fears, because of the roughly 8M (!) FEHB enrollees, only ~40,000 are on Aetna HDHP (which by the way is the most popular HDHP/HSA for Feds).
•  Minutiae:  For those with Rx auto-refills, BCBS does not automatically renew your prescriptions until after to January 13^th, even for generics. I’m sure this is a deliberate revenue decision to wait for your renewal- their purchasing software won’t renew prescriptions if you don’t renew your insurance premiums.
• Received the Aetna HSA Visa Debit card, but no visibility on HSA account balance or mechanisms to fund the HSA yet.

 

Subscribe to GubMints:

via RSS:	via Email:

 

---