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Phrases Made Easy: “Minimum Essential Coverage”

Welcome back to another edition of “Phrases Made Easy.” This series at our blog aims to help make all of those long, drawn-out insurance phrases easier to understand. One thing we notice when talking about health insurance (and health benefits in general) is that the concepts can be “wordy” and boring. We emphasize fixing that here!

Our biggest goal is to help you tune in, understand, and put this knowledge to work for yourself or your company. We’re firm believers that informed consumers can make a really, really big difference in our industry.

The phrase that we’re talking about today is minimum essential coverage. This one sounds difficult, but it’s really not too bad. We’ve selected this phrase for one primary reason:

  1. Under the healthcare reform law (Obamacare, ACA)… minimum essential coverage is: the type of health insurance coverage that is required to be held by most Americans (per the individual mandate), in order to avoid individual tax penalties

In other words… you need to find a place where you can find minimum essential coverage (or pay a tax penalty). It doesn’t matter how rich you are or poor you are, where you live, or what kind of job you have… the law states that nearly every single American citizen will need to find minimum essential coverage by January 1st, 2014. It’s just that simple.

There are a number of different places where you can find minimum essential coverage. Here are the majority of options available for most people:

  • Coverage under an “eligible employer-sponsored plan,” which the proposed Treasury rule defines generally to mean coverage under a group health plan, whether insured or self-insured, including coverage under a federal or non-federal governmental plan (keeping it simple: coverage through your employer).
  • Coverage under an employer-sponsored retiree health plan.
  • Coverage under certain government programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and TRICARE.
  • Coverage in the individual insurance market, including a plan offered by an Exchange** (if you’re in California, you’ll want to look at Covered California).
  • Other coverage recognized by HHS, including self-funded student health coverage and coverage under Medicare Advantage plans.

**Very important new concept to understand

Please note that coverage listed as “excepted benefits” (as defined by HIPAA) will not qualify as minimum essential coverage. IE: dental benefits, vision benefits, and FSAs will not qualify on their own.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PolicyAdvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PolicyAdvantage

Word Press: http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com

Policy Advantage Insurance Services: Content Guide

This is the Policy Advantage Insurance Services comprehensive content guide. We are giving you insight into our various information outlets (much like TV channels), so that you can effectively utilize these resources as valuable tools. You can find us at all of the top social media sites on the web. (username: policyadvantage)

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In this blog post you will discover all of the platforms and services where we distribute our information (ie: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc). Although each location is a little bit different, we try to stay as consistent as possible with the information we share. Our biggest goal is to help empower our clients, when it comes to making decisions about funding their healthcare.

You can click on the icons below to visit each location. There’s a goldmine of information… here you go:

Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Homepage: 

home

Page URL: www.policyadvantage.com

Purpose: Like any home page, this is where our business resides online. Here you will find standard company information (addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc). You will also find things like customer testimonials, links to our social media, online application tools, and other information that is useful for both clients and colleagues.

Our homepage’s goal is to be a very important resource to our clients and policyholders. We are currently in the early stages of our homepage development, with a goal to make it a very interactive and user-friendly location that provides many tools (ie: applying online, user profiles, easy accessibility to information, and many others). We’ll continue to improve our homepage, so make sure to check back.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Twitter Page:

Twitter

Page URL: www.twitter.com/policyadvantage

Purpose: The purpose of our Twitter page is to distribute short, valuable, up-to-date pieces of information to our Twitter followers. We like to call it a “micro-blog.” At our Twitter page, we will tweet links to articles of interest, important webpages, important blog posts, etc. Our Twitter posts are also sometimes social (ie: non-insurance content that may include current events, pictures, “inside” company info, sports, local events, etc).

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Facebook Page:

facebook f

Page URL: www.facebook.com/policyadvantage

Purpose: The purpose of our Facebook page is to distribute valuable information to the people who “Like” our Facebook page and also to the general public. Everything (all posts) at our Facebook page are public. We encourage our friends, clients, and followers to “like and share” the information that we post in our news feed. There are graphics, links, etc that can come in handy. We share a lot of info at our Facebook page.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Word Press Page:

word press

Page URL: www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com

Purpose: This is Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ primary blog. This is where you’ll find the most in-depth written information that we share. Our intended audience here is both employers and individuals. You will find valuable information across all subjects when it comes to financing (paying for) healthcare. Many of our posts are categorized, and we try to keep things as simple as possible. Whatever you are looking for, you will find it here… spend some time at this blog. It’s like a health benefits newspaper.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ YouTube Page: 

youtube-logo

Page URL: www.youtube.com/policyadvantage

Purpose: Some people would rather watch/listen than read. For those that would rather watch, our YouTube page is for you. If you are interested in hearing presentations on the various topics and subjects, this is where you want to be. We add Power Point presentations on a periodic basis. Some of our most important information is shared through our YouTube channel.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Pinterest Page:

Pinterest

Page URL: www.pinterest.com/policyadvantage

Purpose: Pinterest is kind of a newbie in the social media world. It is a great website. This is a place where you can learn more about us at a personal level (outside of just insurance/health benefits talk). We have various creative pin boards here, where we pin the things that inspire us. We even have one dedicated to our clients and colleagues: “Heart of a Lion.” Definitely look us up and follow us at Pinterest, we have fun here. Our webpage was also just recently “Pinterest verified.” We now have the official red check mark next to our URL.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ Blogspot Blog:

Blogger

Page URL: www.policyadvantage.blogspot.com

Purpose: Our Blogspot blog is currently our secondary blog (we always recommend our Word Press blog first). We have future plans to develop this blog further. Currently, it is pretty much a “mirror” to the rest of our content.  Check back periodically.

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Policy Advantage Insurance Services’ About.me Page:

about.me

Page URL: www.about.me/policyadvantage

Purpose: Our newest addition to the content family, our About.me page is currently under construction. Check back periodically as we prepare it to distribute more Policy Advantage Insurance Services information in the future.

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This concludes our comprehensive review of our internet content guide. Check any of the various outlets, and you fill find valuable, up-to-date, relevant information about financing (paying for) healthcare. There is some great information at these different Policy Advantage Insurance Services social media locations.

We also stay on top of current trends, and will add additional “channels” when they become popular. Our username at each one is typically “slash policyadvantage.” (www.example.com/policyadvantage)

As always, thanks for stopping by. We hope that you found our information to be valuable. Please share it with friends, clients, colleagues, and family.