Published December 15, 2008
2008 DENTAL AND VISION PROVIDERS
With a range of vision benefit programs available to them, employers can offer
employees choices while controlling the cost of the benefit even as general
health care costs continue to rise.
"If you look at the major providers, I see a
lot of `high-medium-low' designs similar to what an employee might see in a
medical offering," said Manny Menendez, principle benefits consultant-health
management practice with Lincolnshire, Illinois-based Hewitt Associates Inc.
By offering a range of copay levels, employers
hope to keep the benefit attractive for those employees who need it
most—particularly older workers and those with chronic vision problems and other
illnesses—while keeping costs down for others. The average employer spends less
than 5 percent of total health care-related spending on employee vision care,
Menendez said.
On the dental-benefits front, the National Association of Dental Plans and the
Delta Dental Plans Association, the U.S. industry's two trade associations, are
closely watching health care reform efforts and how they may affect dental
benefits, officials said.
The groups are particularly concerned about
changes that would remove employers' ability to deduct such premiums from their
taxes and counting dental benefits as taxable income for employees.
"Over 96 percent of all dental benefits are
provided through employment or other private and public groups," said Evelyn
Ireland, Dallas-based executive director of the National Association of Dental
Plans. "Changes in employer-based coverage could significantly erode current
dental coverage and thereby reduce the oral health of Americans."
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