The Firm offers a choice of three Medical Plan options:
- Options A and B are PPOs.
- Option C is a Consumer-Driven Health Plan (also known as a High-Deductible Plan).
Employees who live in California or Hawaii, or who are US-based expats, have other medical plan options.
Regardless of which option you choose, you may elect one of two Medical Plan administrators – Cigna or UnitedHealthcare (UHC). Both:
- Provide preventive care — including annual exams, immunizations and routine age-appropriate screenings — at no cost to you when you use in-network providers.
- Cover the same services, like doctor visits, hospital care, lab work and X-rays.
- Give you access to Cigna or UnitedHealthcare doctors, hospitals and other providers. Note: Although your paycheck contributions will be the same if you choose either administrator, you may pay less, on average, for medical services if you elect the preferred provider in your state.
- Include prescription drug coverage, administered by Express Scripts.
Paycheck Contributions, Deductibles and Out-of-Pocket Maximums
When choosing a Medical Plan option, it’s important to consider your total costs because each option’s paycheck contributions (view 2022 and 2023 contributions), deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums differ. Making the right choice for you and dependents means understanding how the annual deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums work.
- Your annual deductible is the fixed dollar amount you pay each year toward your medical expenses before the Medical Plan begins to cover a portion of the cost of your health care services. You pay the full cost of services (with some exceptions) until you meet the total deductible amount.
- After meeting the annual deductible, you and the Plan share in the cost of services through coinsurance – you pay 20% of costs and the Plan pays the remaining 80%.
- If the sum of your deductible and out-of-pocket costs reaches the annual out-of-pocket maximum, the Plan begins to pay 100% of the cost of in-network services and 100% of reasonable and customary cost for out-of-network services for the remainder of the year.
When comparing the three Medical Plan options, the higher the deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, the lower your paycheck contributions will be, and vice versa.