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For business owners, providing group health insurance benefits helps retain high quality employees and ensures better production with preventive medical care for a healthy workforce. With BCBSF group insurance plans, there are many options for Florida employers to choose the amount of premiums they cover, and a wide network of medical providers.

In 2007 alone, Florida business owners added 200,000 new members enrolled in BCBSF commercial health insurance plans. According to the South Florida Business Journal, " This 3.1 percent increase brought the total employees insured to nearly 9 million Florida people in commercial health plans, including both insurance provider-underwritten and those self-insured." The greatest increase came from the Blue Options PPO health plan enrollees. This popular health plan has higher deductibles for employees and lower monthly premiums, thus giving affordable payment options to both employers and employees.

In addition to the top growth for commercial health plans, employees have rated BCBSF health coverage plans with the "Highest Member Satisfaction Among Commercial Health Plans in the South," according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 National Health Insurance Plan Satisfaction Study(SM). Florida employers can choose various payment options from paying the entire premium of the employee; to sharing a certain percentage of the annual insurance costs.

The popular BlueOptions PPO (Preferred provider organizations), meets the diverse needs of the workforce by providing different benefits and premiums options, including Health Savings Account (HSA) compatible plans. To help control health insurance costs, the health savings accounts allow the employers and employees to cut costs with payments to a pre-tax savings account that pays for routine and preventive medical treatment. The HSA plans are usually combined with higher deductibles to keep costs of monthly payments down.

Another popular group insurance plan is the BlueChoice PPO that gives your employees the choice of quality doctors and hospitals within the BlueChoice network with no required referrals. BCBSF also offers dental, disability, life, and long-term care insurance policies. In addition, there are a variety of financial programs for groups that put the employer in control of health care costs and may offer tax advantages, like Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRA).

Another commercial health plan choice is the BlueCare HMO, offered by Health Options, Inc. This group plan gives employees a full range of benefits including preventive care and fixed copayments. Generally, HMOs (Health maintenance organizations), require employees to choose a primary care physician from the approved BCBSF provider network. Thus the monthly premiums can be lower for both the employer and the employee, while still getting comprehensive healthcare coverage for medical needs.

For those employers with many questions, consider contacting your local BCBSF licensed insurance agency to learn all about each group policy and the options available to employers for commercial health insurance plans. These plans can also include vision and dental insurance to cover the complete medical needs of the employee.

Serving central and west coast Florida, Bay Marketing, a licensed independent contractor with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, has been providing insurance plan information for employers during the last twenty years. Many of their professional agents specialize in commercial health insurance for the Florida business owner. Contact Bay Marketing for an online group insurance quote at Florida Health Plans Online.