Oregon Small Businesses Now Have More Health Benefit Options with UnitedHealthcare’s ‘Multi-Choice’ Plan

UnitedHealthcare is now offering a new health plan package in Oregon called Multi-Choice that gives small businesses across the state more benefit plan options they can offer their employees while keeping cost-effective coverage in place.

Multi-Choice, available to businesses with up to 50 employees, allows employers to offer their employees as many as 15 different health plan options, each with different coverage levels, deductibles and premiums. Employers assemble a package of benefit designs for their employees and set a defined contribution level; each employee then has the opportunity to select a plan that best meets his or her needs. This flexibility makes offering health insurance more cost-effective and financially predictable, helping small-business owners continue their ability to offer coverage for their workers.

Employees enrolled in Multi-Choice have several health plan designs to choose from, including:

• traditional benefit designs with various premium, deductible and coinsurance levels;
• consumer-driven designs paired with a health savings account (HSA) or health reimbursement account (HRA); and
• health plans that add specialty benefits, including dental, life, disability and vision.

"Small businesses in Oregon are looking for health care options that are both cost-effective and flexible, and that is why small businesses are showing so much interest right now in Multi-Choice,” said Stephanie Murphy, principal producer of The Ladd Group, a benefit consultant firm in Portland. "This innovative package of health benefit plans is providing employers and their work forces with a new level of choice and financial predictability, which is helping companies to continue to offer coverage.”

"UnitedHealthcare Multi-Choice enables more small businesses to provide the right coverage levels to each of their employees while still controlling costs,” said David Hansen, CEO, UnitedHealthcare of Oregon. "We recognize that small businesses and their employees are faced with many challenges in today’s economic environment, so we created Multi-Choice to help them access flexible, cost-effective health care options.”

Multi-Choice plan participants have access to UnitedHealthcare’s wellness and disease management programs, 24/7 access to OptumHealth’s NurseLine^SM, and a national network of more than 600,000 physicians and 5,000 hospitals, including more than 5,500 physicians and 50 hospitals in Oregon.

About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare provides a full spectrum of consumer-oriented health benefits plans and services to individuals, public sector employers and businesses of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 100 companies. The company organizes access to quality, affordable health care services on behalf of approximately 25 million individual consumers, contracting directly with more than 600,000 physicians and care professionals and 5,000 hospitals to offer them broad, convenient access to services nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.