Category Archives: Insurance Definition
Incorporate Your Business For Great Business Benefits
Incorporate Your Business For Great Business Benefits
The ability to make the right decision at the right time is the most desired quality in any business entrepreneur. And there are certain business decisions that can take your entrepreneurial ambitions further ahead than others. The decision to incorporate your business is one such decision that can affect the future of your business in a positive direction.
Before explaining several benefits of incorporation, let us give you the definition of corporation from a legal point of view. A corporation is regarded as a separate legal entity, whose existence is independent of that of its owners. The process of incorporation is guided by the charter or certificate of incorporation of the respective states. To incorporate a business, you have to fill out the forms for this Charter and file all the papers along with the requisite fees to the proper state authority.
If you are planning to incorporate, you are moving towards the right direction, because the process of incorporation comes with the following benefits:
Incorporation protects you from the disadvantages of sole proprietorship. As such you no longer remain personally liable with regards to business debts. In case of a sole proprietorship or partnership, your personal properties can be seized by the creditors in case you default on the payment of your business debts. These personal properties include your home, savings and other assets. But incorporation of your business makes you one of the shareholders in your company and as such, if your business is down, as a shareholder you have nothing to lose other than the money you have invested in your company. Your other properties are safe from liability.
As a corporation your company gains a much longer life span. In case of sole proprietorship or in the partnership business, the business virtually comes to an end in the event of the death of the proprietor or one of the partners. But a corporation is provided with a legal business structure. No matter what happens to any of its shareholder or executives, a corporation continues to exist, as it has a separate legal entity of its own. The ownership can also be transferred without affecting any business functions just by selling the stocks.
When you are planning to pump in more capital into your business, a corporation business structure comes into great help. When you need some more capital investment, you can sell stocks or other equity interests in the market. If you are a sole proprietor or running a partnership business, it is much more difficult to attract the financiers due to the liability issues.
If you incorporate your business, you can offer many tax-deductible benefits to your employees including health and life insurance, travel and entertainment expense account, and retirement plans. This will help you to attract the best managers in the industry to run your business more profitably.
Getting the Most Out of Your IRO (Independent Review Organization)
Getting the Most Out of Your IRO (Independent Review Organization)
Working with an Independent Review Organization (IRO) is a bit like working with your physician. How do you know you’re going to get the treatment to fix your ailment? Is the treatment covered by my insurance? How long do I have to wait for treatment? Have I given the doctor all of the information he or she needs to make the right care decision?
When requesting an independent medical review, careful consideration needs to be given to focusing on the specific issue(s) you’re trying to resolve. Understanding what questions to ask in the first place will help keep costs at a minimum by ensuring your IRO is reviewing the proper records and facts and correctly delivering decisions on the issues at hand – the first time.
It’s easy to confuse the issue of medical necessity of a procedure with the issue of whether or not a patient qualifies for that procedure according to your plan language. For example, say Mary Smith’s doctor has referred her to a chiropractor for back pain treatment but the plan language on her policy does not cover chiropractic services – no exceptions. Regardless of medical necessity or the doctor’s referral, the treatment would and should be denied. The IRO reviewer must be informed as to which issue you are trying to address up front.
Experimental and investigation treatments also pose a problem. Given constantly evolving technology, drugs and treatment protocols, it’s often difficult to keep up with what’s been approved as scientifically accepted treatment by the medical community and what’s still considered experimental procedure. Knowing that the plan exclusions always take precedence over inclusions can save a lot of time in the review process. The plan language definition of experimental/investigational is central to the decision.
Following are some tips designed to make it easier for you to work with your IRO and ensure meaningful outcomes for both the patients and your business every time:
Make sure you isolate the specific issue you are trying to address before you develop your questions, such as standard of care, medical necessity, experimental/investigational and/or plan language interpretation.
Develop a list of questions that must be answered with a definitive and substantiated reason.
Make sure you include all relevant chart documents and plan language that are needed to provide a definitive response.
If you have exhausted your efforts to get the records you need for a review, a “no” response from your IRO may be just the stimulus needed to prompt the record holder to release the full documents.
Understand that it’s your IRO’s responsibility to call with questions or clarifications on independent medical review requests before they begin. Make sure your IRO understands who to call and the best time of day that person can be reached.
Gold Depositories
Gold Depositories
The simplistic definition of a depository is that it is a place where anything can be left for safekeeping.
The safekeeping of gold, because of its worldwide status as the traditional store of value, is of paramount importance internationally.
Again to put it simply, the wealth, importance and influence of a nation can be measured by the amount of gold it owns.
Gold is stored in secure vaults located in various centers throughout the world with the US holding, in its three largest storage facilities, more than any other country.
It is important to be aware that much of the gold held in the US vaults is the property of other countries but is left in the US for security reasons.
The world’s best known gold depository is Fort Knox in Kentucky and is known as The United States Bullion Depository. Situated very nearly below the World Trade Center in New York is the US Federal Reserve Banks´ vault rumored to be the size of two football pitches.
At the time of the 9/11 attack it was at first feared that the Fed vault was the target.
One of the rules and regulations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) states: Gold Depositories of the Fund shall be established in the US, UK, France and India.
The gold of the Fund shall be held with the depositories designated by the members in whose territories they are located at places agreed with the Fund.
The growing trade in physical gold from hedge funds to private individuals has highlighted the importance of the role of Gold Depositories.
If, as many individual investors are now doing, you are considering trading in gold, it is impractical to collect and privately store the metal in bullion form.
Limited quantities of gold coin can be purchased and delivered but secure storage at the buyers home can become a problem, insurance will be an added annual expense and then there are the costs involved when selling and passing on the metal to the buyer.
When dealing in physical gold transfers of ownership in any but exceptional circumstances take place by exchange of Depository Receipts.
In other words the physical metal stays in the same secure vault before and after the trade with proof of ownership being passed on by paper.
It is therefore of importance to deal only in physical gold stored in an Authorized depository where receipts can be relied upon as proof of ownership.
If in any doubt check it out.
Begin by going online to the depositories website and carry out your due diligence from that starting point.
This is big business and as such it is closely regulated so it is unlikely that any problems will be encountered but it never hurts to take the trouble to be on the safe side.
Understanding California Health Plan Deductibles
Understanding California Health Plan Deductibles
First, the official definition:
Deductible
The amount you must pay for medical services each year before your insurance begins paying.
Now what does that mean?
The deductible is an amount you will pay first before you get help from the carrier. Keep in mind that with a PPO plan, you will get discounted PPO rates which can lower the costs by 30%-60% even though you have a deductible to meet. It’s very important to always stay in-network to keep your costs down.
Exceptions to deductibles. Most traditional plans on the market allow copays for office visits and prescription before you meet your deductible. For example, if there is a copay for office visit, you will pay the right away rather than having to pay the full doctor visit subject to the deductible.
Prescription coverage is frequently broken out separately from the main deductible. There may be a separate deductible from Brand name drugs. This means that with a 0 brand deductible and brand copays, you would pay the first (resets each Jan 1st) 0 of your drug costs and then you would get copays afterward. The brand RX deductibles on the California individual family market typically run from 0-0 depending on the plan. On the California Small group market, the deductibles run from to 0 on average.
Some plans, such as the popular HSA (Health Savings Account) plans do not break out office visit and prescription from the main deductible. The deductible are all inclusive. There are a few other plans on the market which include the office and/or rx as part of the deductible so make sure to look at the plan detail when running your California health quote. The trade off with the HSA plans is that they can be much less expensive. If you are saving 0-00 annually or more, that pays for a lot of office visits and medication cost.
Deductible are handled in two ways when multiple family members are on one policy. Except for HSA plans, deductible are usually per person when you have more than one family member on a policy. You will typically see a “2 member max” statement around the deductible. This means that if two people in a family hit their deductible, the other family members do not need to. This is to protect against a catastrophic health situation where every family member had large bills in one year and the resulting out of pocket could be 10’s of thousands.
HSA’s or Health Savings Account plans on the other hand are cumulative deductibles. You essentially double the single person deductible and the entire family (2 or more people) is working towards one family deductible. Depending on the situation, this works to your favor or not. If one person in a family has large bills, he or she has a larger deductible to meet than if he/she were on an individual deductible plan. However, if multiple members have bills, it can be work to their advantage. Ultimately, the premium savings on an annual basis should more than compensate for the large deductible and that has been the attraction of HSA plans.
Out of network providers. Keep in mind that the discounted PPO rate for a given charge is what will be applied to a deductible if you use out of network providers. For example, let’s say you have a 0 deductible. If you have a 0 charge for an out of network provider, and the PPO contracted rate for that procedure is 0, the carrier will typically only apply the 0 to your deductible. Try to stay in-network with PPO plans.
After your deductible is met in a calendar year, with most plans, you then start to share the costs with the carrier for future medical charges in the form of co-insurance or copays according to the benefits of the policy.
A Help on Divorce
A Help on Divorce
Summary: If divorce is really the only option, then you should do it correctly. Read on for timely advices and help on divorce
Bad marriages seem so blatantly rampant nowadays. Is it due to misaligned virtues? The shedding of the family mores that had kept intact the family circles of the last century. Or is it the rising trend of sex awareness that gave a new definition to the world weary terms of love and marriage.
In any event, divorce is mostly a result of bad marriages. It’s a considerable result too. In the US alone, the divorce statistics reported for the year 2000 alone, 957,200 divorces are made against the 2,355,005 marriages made of the same year. Statistically speaking, that is half of the marriages ending in divorce.
For that reason I strongly urge you to rethink your ideas for divorce, not for contributing on the statistics, but to set a change on the world convoluted with easy marriages, easy divorce and casual relationships. There are ways to sidestep divorce and here are some of them.
Consider Separation
Some states in the US require separation for a number of years before a divorce is possible. That is to stop the recent rampant usage of divorce lately. Separation refers to the cessation of living together by couples but without getting a divorce. They are still lawfully married therefore still subject to the obligations of husband and wife. Legal separation is still the same on the essence but has the authority of the court thus making it legal.
Separation is a fine option to get besides divorce. It is best proactive option, too, for hopes that the marriage will be reconciled later. Separation is also beneficial on a lot of things, not just saving marriages. Certain situations like religious concerns over divorce, insurance concerns and coverage, and even the benefits of tax, social security and pension.
Help on Divorce
If by chance divorce is really the only option, then you should do it correctly. To date, there are two ways to file a divorce: Fault Divorce and a No-Fault Divorce. Traditional Fault grounds include but not limited to cruelty, adultery, desertion, and inability to engage in sexual intercourse.
But probably the most painless (and the often used option) is the no-fault option. Grounds for no-fault option include incompatibility, irreconcilable differences, or irremediable breakdown of the marriage. As mentioned above, this policy is only awardable when the criteria of separation are met.
Most counselors that help on divorce and separation often advise on friendship. True enough, amicable divorces do make agreements less stressful. It allows uncontested divorces which can get approved in a matter of weeks.