MVP starting private health-insurance exchange

MVP Health Care, Inc. is dipping its toe into the health insurance exchange movement a year before New York’s state-operated exchange will be up and running. 

Schenectady–based MVP, which has a Syracuse office at AXA Tower 2 at 120 Madison St., is rolling out its own private benefit exchange for coverage starting Jan. 1. The private exchange, called NuOptions, Powered by Bright Choices, will be available for employers across the insurer’s coverage footprint in Vermont and New York — including Central New York. It will also be available for large employer groups in New Hampshire.

“This is, we think, a way for employers to save more money, to manage their health-care spending, and at the same time offer a more member-centric product portfolio for their employees,” says Augusta Martin, vice president of market innovation for MVP Health Care. “Instead of offering one or two health plans, they can serve up to seven or eight plan options.”

Employers that opt to step into the exchange will give their employees a set amount of money to purchase benefits, according to Martin. Employees will then log on to the exchange through a Web-based tool and shop for coverage.

The exchange won’t be limited to health insurance. It will include dental, life, and disability coverage, along with other types of benefits.

Employees will have some guidance once they enter the exchange, Martin continues. They will complete a questionnaire that will help develop a picture of their benefit needs. The Web portal will then provide recommendations based on information such as an employee’s health profile and tolerance for risk.

The setup could relieve some pressure on small businesses, according to Martin.

“As much as we do offer this to small and large employers, we do think that the tool itself, the technology behind it, and some of the administrative functions are very attractive to small employers,” she says. “Generally they don’t have online enrollment systems. They don’t have the resources to automate it.”

MVP thinks the exchange product will make it easier for employers to move toward giving their employees a set amount of money to help pay for insurance that the employees choose. Martin says such moves are likely to be a market trend once the state brings its exchange online in 2014 to comply with the national health-care reform law.

However, MVP has actually been in discussions with its private benefit-exchange partner, New York City–based Liazon Corp., since before the health-care reform law passed, Martin says. She first met with Liazon in the fall of 2007, she adds.

MVP has already offered its plans through chamber of commerce-run exchanges. Most of those are in the Capital Region, according to Martin, although the Rochester Business Alliance also offers MVP plans in its Bright Choices Exchange from Liazon.

Martin expects the private exchange to take some time to catch on in New York. MVP is training brokers to sell the new product, but the state has a history of rich benefit plans that can cause resistance to changes among employees, she says. That history grows stronger moving west in the state, she says.

MVP does not yet have any companies who have signed up to use the private exchange in Central New York.

“We’ve got a couple companies, right now larger ones, that are interested,” Martin says. “We have no confirmed Central New York sales yet.”

Ultimately, the private exchange is likely to give MVP a leg up when the state’s exchange arrives in 2014, Martin adds.

“It will demonstrate that we have some experience in this arena,” she says. “It will give us a chance to be a little more innovative outside of what we’ll be able to do in the state exchanges. I think the private exchanges give us a little more latitude.”

MVP, a nonprofit, has 650,000 members and 1,700 employees. It is the eighth-largest insurer in Central New York with 41,000 members in the region, according to the 2012 Book of Lists.       

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com