Ameriflex
Taking Health to the Employees

When hiring the crème de la crème of employees in their respective fields, the key to retaining them is by providing something significant to not just the employees, but also the world around them. On a different note, affordable healthcare is becoming increasingly difficult for many Americans to obtain. Connecting those two points, if better benefits are the key to attracting top talent, and affordable healthcare is turning harder to attain, how does one bridge the valley between the two? The answer is Ameriflex, and its CEO William C. Short. Bright is the captain steering this ship. As one of the nation’s largest independent administrator of consumer-driven health plans, Ameriflex is focused on making it easier for employers to provide their workforce with access to good healthcare plans and medical facilities.

In today’s human resources scenario, organizations have realized that adding a saving or spending account to their benefits package can help them recruit and retain top talent, while also saving on their money on payroll taxes. Leveraging this approach, Ameriflex provides some of the industry’s most comprehensive benefit accounts. These include healthcare flexible spending account (FSA), health savings account (HSA), health reimbursement account (HRA), commuter reimbursement account (CRA) and dependent care account (DCA), which employers can add to their employees’ packages.

The FSA helps employees save money for routine medical expenses. The FSA allows employees to set aside pre-tax money from their paycheck for eligible healthcare expenses. The ability to allow employees to put aside the pre-tax money into the healthcare requirement makes it possible to reduce their taxable income, and in turn, brings down the organization’s tax burden. To supplement this feature, the HSA that is used in conjunction with a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) provides multiple tax-advantage for the employee and employer.

After using this plan, the employees will not be required to pay taxes on contribution, nor on the interests earned or on withdrawals for qualified expenses. On the other hand, employers will save high insurance premiums by offering an HDHP. To close the loop of healthcare benefits, HRA helps employees save money on the high costs associated with healthcare. In addition to the healthcare accounts, the CRA allows the employees’ put aside pre-tax money for commuting, while the DCA is designed to pay for the daily care of an eligible child or adult dependent.

While empowering organizations to provide the employees with benefits, Ameriflex helps the former stay compliant to regulations as well. While administering health benefits plan, the organizations need to maintain the plan documents and summary plan description. These documents provide participants with all the details on their plan—rules, financial information, and plan management. Since both the documents are required by the Department of Labor, they must stay up-to-date with existing regulations. Ameriflex’s Documents Only Services negates the hassle of creating, sending and updating required plan documents to ensure the firm is compliant with the regulation.

In addition, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), is a federal law that sets minimum standards of retirement and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans. Ameriflex’s ERISA Concierge provides employers with a package of services that helps them in managing the ERISA-related complexities. The services include customized, ongoing compliance consultation and support, Form 5500 filing services, and electronic document record keeping.

Headquartered in Texas, Ameriflex serves thousands of clients and more than 3.5 million individual participants nationwide. But, how does one judge a human resources company’s offerings? Based on how they treat their employees, the National Association of Business Resources recently recognized Ameriflex as an ideal place to work. This recognition was based on the firm’s compensation, benefits, employee solutions, and work-life balance.