Employer Services
Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)

Faced with rising healthcare costs, employers are increasingly looking for ways to engage employees in the effort to reduce spending. By giving employees more choice in how they spend their healthcare dollars, an HRA encourages them to be more value conscious consumers – significantly impacting your long-term costs.

A flexible tool, an HRA offers a selection of plan design features to suit your company's unique needs. Cornerstone Group can help you understand your options and implement an effective solution for both you and your staff by providing everything from plan documents to ongoing employee communication and support.

To learn more about HRAs, visit our FAQ's or contact our Health and Welfare Plan Administration department.

What is an HRA?
A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) is an employee benefit plan designed to help offset medical expenses incurred by the employee. HRAs vary greatly in design, but are basically developed to cover the expenses not covered by group health or supplemental plans.

For example, one HRA can be designed to cover all or a portion of the deductible and co-pays on your health care plans on High Deductible Health Coverage (HDHC), while another can be designed to reimburse the employee for dental and vision expenses.
It just depends on your goals in providing employee benefits.

An HRA can be "linked" or "unlinked." A linked HRA is tied to a health plan; the employee has to participate in the health plan to be eligible for the HRA. An unlinked
(or stand-alone) HRA is set up to pay certain expenses, such as dental or vision expenses, without any connection to an insurance policy.

HRAs provide the employer with increased choices and greater control over expenses.

Setup

Plan Design and Risk Exposure Analysis. Cornerstone will work closely with you to help design a plan that is right for your employees and your budget with careful attention to your overall exposure.

Plan Documentation. Based on management's objectives and IRS requirements, Cornerstone will customize a plan document to meet the needs of the employer.

Summary Plan Description. Cornerstone will customize the IRS-required Summary Plan Description (SPD) to communicate provisions of the plan to employees.

Corporate Resolution/Adoption Agreement. Cornerstone will develop a corporate resolution/adoption agreement for an owner/officer's signature to adopt the Flexible Benefit Plan.

Employee Communication

Introductory Letters. Cornerstone can provide a sample letter from management introducing the plan to its employees.

Employee Communication Materials. Available in both brochure and PDF versions

Group Meetings. Presentations can be conducted with all eligible employees to communicate the Plan and its benefits.

Online Enrollment. Through our web site, employees may enroll online in the Flexible Benefit Plan at their convenience 24 hours a day seven days a week. We also accept all other forms of electronic submittal.

Enrollment Forms. All administrative forms (e.g., enrollment forms, claim forms, etc.) required to implement the Plan will be provided by Cornerstone.

Ongoing Administration

Discrimination Testing. Cornerstone will perform the discrimination testing required by the IRS to insure that plans are not discriminatory in favor of key or highly compensated employees.

Cornerstone Debit Card. One of the newest and fastest growing enhancements in benefit administration, and it’s here at Cornerstone. The Cornerstone Debit Card allows for eligible expenses to be paid for at point-of-sale. That means dramatically reduced usage of claim forms. And it means the participants may never need to go out-of-pocket for an eligible expense while waiting for claims processing and reimbursement.

Claims Adjudication. Cornerstone will perform all reimbursement claims adjudication.

Reimbursement Checks/Direct Deposit. Employees' reimbursement checks will be sent directly to the employee's address on a weekly schedule. Each check contains an Explanation of Benefits and the current balance for their Health Reimbursement Account. Reimbursements may also be directly deposited in the employees bank account.

Online Inquiry for Participants. Through the TeamCornerstone web site, participants may obtain the status of their claims, reimbursements and HRA account balances at their convenience 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Toll-free Telephone Support. A toll-free HRA Plan hotline is provided to management and plan participants to allow prompt response to all questions concerning payroll system coordination, enrollment questions, claims, account balances and other administration questions.

Quarterly Status Reports. Status reports showing spending account accruals versus plan expenditures for each employee will be produced quarterly for distribution to each employee.

Management Reports. Cornerstone will provide the employer with management reports regarding the Plan and employee activity.