Small Business - Member Story - Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island

I think it's safe to say that most people in neighborhood are familiar with the role of a navigator for our Medicaid population so a navigator is someone that's outside of our walls that can assist our potential members and our current members the role of a broker is very similar to that but they're providing that assistance for small business owners their clients are the employers we know that health insurance today is a major cost for businesses particularly small employers and our job

as brokers is to really be a health care consultant advisor to the owner of a business a lot of those companies never offered insurance to begin with so we're actually creating an opportunity that wasn't even there for these employers in the past neighborhoods also creating opportunities for small businesses who have found themselves priced out of the market ray has one such client it's a local businessman who offered his employees health insurance coverage for

decades until it simply got too expensive and he had to stop next year he said ray I gotta find I gotta find a way to get the health care back and how can you do it I said well we got a look at neighbor with them some I don't know math about we educated we showed it to him now I've been neighborhoods been in there five years and his employees love it brokers have learned that after just a few minutes of education about the plans benefits its large network and its exceptional customer service the reasons to choose neighborhood become obvious there's really a couple of things that stand out about the neighborhood plan

when I'm talking with an employer cost is one the premiums are noticeably less than the competition an employer could have a neighborhood prime plan with a five hundred dollar deductible for the probably the equivalent of one of the competitors fifteen hundred or two thousand dollar deductible plans so that certainly gets their attention which is just part of the reason neighborhoods commercial plans continue to attract new small businesses month after month neighborhood is unbelievable to work with they're one of the few companies with the local presence compared to the

competition where a lot of the competition is not local or unavailable no matter how they come to neighborhood it's immediately clear to each and every one of our members just how deeply connected we are to the community we serve it's something more and more small businesses are now learning as well I think once you show an employer what the option is I think every small business should have neighborhood as an option for their employee you