When the Affordable Care Act started to change how businesses bought healthcare, Omaha insurance executives saw an opportunity.
“The insurance execs knew how the space was changing under the ACA, but didn’t know how to build a platform,” said Patrick Fisher, CEO, benefitbay. “They approached a few technology execs in Omaha, came together and benefitbay was founded.”
For the past several years, small business owners have seen an increase in their health insurance costs. Benefitbay is attempting to help cut these costs by providing a platform that helps small businesses contain costs through a defined contribution model.
“Rather than the employer offering one benefits package to all employees, the employer can now give everyone a set amount,” Fisher said. “The employee can then go in and shop for an individual health plan that best fits their needs.”
The comparator feature
Benefitbay also features the “comparator,” a tool that provides more flexibility and transparency for small business owners to decide if they want to offer a small group plan or individual plans.
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“It’s challenging to determine what the costs are associated with going with a group or individual plan,” Fisher said. “We’ve really simplified that process so employers can get quotes for both routes.”
Fisher explained that the comparator also takes into account taxation and subsidies available from the government.
Growing pains
Fisher explained that one of the biggest challenges the team often runs into is legislation.
“In 2014, all employers were supposed to shift to new ACA plans,” Fisher said. “When that changed again under Obama, many employers hung onto their old group plans because they’re cheaper and don’t offer as much coverage.”
Fisher explained that these legislation changes caused benefitbay to pivot.
“But through that pivot we ended up signing a deal with Humana. Humana chose benefitbay, a little software company in Omaha to power their own private exchange, which is really exciting.”
What’s next for benefitbay
Ultimately benefitbay aspires to be the platform of choice for small business customers. While they are currently focused on benefits, the team plans to evolve the product into a single source platform for all benefits, HR and payroll activities.
To learn more about benefitbay, you can visit https://www.benefitbay.com/about-us
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Melanie Lucks is a communications intern for Silicon Prairie News and AIM Careerlink.
