WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alegeus, the market leader in consumer-directed healthcare (CDH) solutions, today announced a partnership with HealthSherpa, a health technology company that has created a simplified health insurance plan shopping and enrollment experience, to provide enhanced capabilities for its clients around the individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement (ICHRA). HealthSherpa helps ICHRA-eligible employees search for and enroll in the best individual plans, which will bolster the health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) experience from Alegeus and give third-party administrators (TPAs) and health plans a strategy for increasing employer and employee participation in health benefit accounts.
“The spiraling cost of healthcare continually challenges employers to provide higher quality, more affordable health benefits to their employees – this year perhaps more than ever due to COVID-19,” said Steven Auerbach, Alegeus CEO. “By partnering with HealthSherpa, we will empower our health plan and TPA clients to provide employers with an out-of-box solution that increases the flexibility of benefit offerings while tightly controlling costs.”
Introduced to the market last year and effective as of Jan. 1, 2020, ICHRAs are designed to allow employers of all sizes to fund an HRA for employees to buy individual market insurance instead of offering group coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ICHRA can also be used by employees to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. According to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury, once adjusted to the new rules, roughly 800,000 employers will offer ICHRA to pay for more than 11 million employees and their families – signaling significant interest and upcoming demand.
To support clients and empower them to remain agile in the always-evolving market landscape, Alegeus will integrate HealthSherpa’s technology with the highly configurable WealthCare platform for a comprehensive, well-rounded ICHRA enrollment and administration experience. Employees will access their ICHRA account through the Alegeus platform and use the HealthSherpa exchange platform to search for, purchase and enroll in their preferred health plan. This seamless experience provides a differentiator for TPAs at a time when employers seek a simplified, streamlined way to deliver benefit plans.
Specifically, the HealthSherpa integration will:
- Provide intelligent routing technology to give individuals the best shopping experience based on their ICHRA benefit;
- Offer plan selection services with decision support;
- Provide best-in-class call center services to facilitate enrollment;
- Deliver enhanced employer/administrator reporting;
- Process enrollment files and assign benefit amounts for ICHRA;
- Enable post-enrollment servicing and plan management.
“Since the introduction of ICHRA, we have successfully connected eligible employees to the best plans, based on their unique financial and healthcare needs,” said George Kalogeropoulos, HealthSherpa CEO. “We’ve enrolled more than 3 million people to-date and are excited to increase that number through our partnership with Alegeus.”
About Alegeus
Alegeus is the market leader in consumer-directed healthcare solutions, offering an industry-leading benefits platform, benefit debit card and mobile app that are transforming the way people navigate the U.S. healthcare system. Our next-generation technology simplifies the administration of healthcare benefit accounts (including FSAs, HSAs, HRAs, wellness incentive, dependent care and commuter accounts), and uses data-driven insights to guide consumers to the best coverage, care and savings strategies. More than 350 Alegeus clients – including health insurance plans and third-party administrators – leverage our deep expertise and proven technology to administer benefit accounts for more than 30 million members and to process more than $9.1 billion in consumer healthcare payments annually. As the healthcare and benefit markets continue to evolve, Alegeus delivers solutions that enable clients to evolve their service offerings, operate their businesses more efficiently, and lead consumers to better health and financial decisions. The company is headquartered in Waltham, MA with operations in Orlando, FL and Milwaukee, WI.
About HealthSherpa
HealthSherpa partners with large employers, insurers, insurance agencies, and agents to support consumers searching for, enrolling in and utilizing high quality, affordable health insurance coverage. HealthSherpa only sells ACA marketplace plans, which have built-in consumer protections, and has enrolled over 3 million Americans in Affordable Care Act coverage since its founding in 2014. For more information, visit https://www.healthsherpa.com.
