Rate Review & the 80/20 Rule (2024)

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Rate Review & the 80/20 Rule

The health care law provides 2 ways to hold insurance companies accountable and help keep your costs down: Rate Review and the 80/20 rule.

Rate Review

Rate Review helps protect you from unreasonable rate increases. Insurance companies must now publicly explain any rate increase of 15% or more before raising your premium. This does not apply to grandfathered plans.

80/20 Rule

The 80/20 Rule generally requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the money they take in from premiums on health care costs and quality improvement activities. The other 20% can go to administrative, overhead, and marketing costs.

The 80/20 rule is sometimes known as Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR. If an insurance company uses 80 cents out of every premium dollar to pay for your medical claims and activities that improve the quality of care, the company has a Medical Loss Ratio of 80%.

Insurance companies selling to large groups (usually more than 50 employees) must spend at least 85% of premiums on care and quality improvement.

If your insurance company doesn’t meet these requirements, you’ll get a rebate on part of the premium that you paid.

Will I get a rebate check from my insurance company?

If your insurance company doesn’t meet its 80/20 targets for the year, you’ll get back some of the premium that you paid.

You may see the rebate in a number of ways:

  • A rebate check in the mail
  • A lump-sum deposit into the same account that was used to pay the premium, if you paid by credit card or debit card
  • A direct reduction in your future premium
  • Your employer may also use one of the above rebate methods, or apply the rebate in a way that benefits employees

If you or your employer will get a rebate, your insurance company must notify you by August 1.

If you have an individual insurance policy, you’ll get the rebate directly from your insurance company.

For small group and large group plans, the rebate is usually paid to the employer. It may use one of the above rebate methods, or apply the rebate in a way that benefits employees.

FYI: The 80/20 rebate rules don’t apply when an insurance company has fewer than 1000 enrollees in a particular state or market.

Does this apply to my plan?

It depends.

For Rate Review: These requirements don’t apply to grandfathered plans. Check your plan’s materials or ask your employer or your benefits administrator to find out if your health plan is grandfathered.

For the 80/20 Rule: These rights apply to all individual, small group, and large group health plans, whether your plan is grandfathered or not.

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Rate Review & the 80/20 Rule (2024)

FAQs

How to calculate 80/20 rule for insurance? ›

The 80/20 Rule generally requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the money they take in from premiums on health care costs and quality improvement activities. The other 20% can go to administrative, overhead, and marketing costs. The 80/20 rule is sometimes known as Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR.

What is the 80 20 rule for Medicare? ›

When a physician accepts “assignment,” he or she agrees to accept the Medicare approved charge as full payment for the services provided. Medicare pays 80% of the approved charge. Either the patient or supplemental insurance pays the remaining 20% co-payment.

How does 80/20 health insurance work? ›

What does 80/20 coinsurance mean? Simply put, 80/20 coinsurance means your insurance company pays 80% of the total bill, and you pay the other 20%. Remember, this applies after you've paid your deductible.

What is a good loss ratio for health insurance? ›

The ACA requires health insurers in the individual and small group markets to spend at least 80% of their premium revenues on clinical care and quality improvements. For the large group market, the MLR requirement is 85%.

How do you calculate 80/20 rule? ›

How does it work? Let's do the math. If 80% of 80% of business comes from 20% of the 20% of the customers, it's (0.80 x 0.80) / (0.20 x 0.20). This means that 64% of business comes from 4% of the customers.

What is an example of the 80-20 rule? ›

80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals. 80% of sales are from 20% of clients. 80% of project value is achieved with the first 20% of effort. 80% of your knowledge is used 20% of the time.

How do you take advantage of the 80 20 rule? ›

How to use the 80/20 rule
  1. Examine all of your daily or weekly tasks.
  2. Prioritize your most important tasks.
  3. Identify the tasks that offer the greatest return.
  4. Brainstorm how to delegate or remove tasks that give less return.
  5. Make a plan that outlines time and resources versus prioritized tasks.
Feb 3, 2023

Does Medicare pay 80 20? ›

Medicare pays 80 percent of approved charges and you pay about 20 percent. Part B is optional because you have to pay a monthly premium and meet a deductible before Medicare will pay benefits.

What is the 80 20 retirement plan? ›

What is an 80/20 Retirement Plan? An 80/20 retirement plan is a type of retirement plan where you split your retirement savings/ investment in a ratio of 80 to 20 percent, with 80% accounting for low-risk investments and 20% accounting for high-growth stocks.

Which is better, 70/30 or 80/20 insurance? ›

So you'll find that most health plans with 70/30 coinsurance have lower premiums than an 80/20 plan. So, if you're mostly healthy and have a good emergency fund in place, it might be a good idea to look for a health plan with higher coinsurance.

What is the 80 20 split in an insurance policy? ›

Coinsurance kicks in after the policy deductible is satisfied. One of the most common coinsurance breakdowns is the 80/20 split: The insurer pays 80%, the insured 20%. Copays require the insured to pay a set dollar amount at the time of the service.

How to calculate copay? ›

Since deductibles and copayments are fixed amounts, it doesn't take a lot of math to figure out how much to pay. A $30 copayment to fill a prescription or see a doctor will cost you $30 no matter how much the total bill for the prescription or office visit was. Your health insurance picks up the rest of the tab.

What is a bad loss ratio? ›

The lower the ratio, the more profitable the insurance company, and vice versa. If the loss ratio is above 1, or 100%, the insurance company is unprofitable and maybe in poor financial health because it is paying out more in claims than it is receiving in premiums.

What percentage of my income should go to health insurance? ›

A good rule of thumb for how much you spend on health insurance is 10% of your annual income. However, there are many factors to consider when deciding how much to spend on health insurance, including your income, age, health status, and eligibility restrictions.

What is the 85% MLR rule? ›

If an insurance company spends less than 80% (85% in the large group market) of premium on medical care and efforts to improve the quality of care, they must refund the portion of premium that exceeded this limit. This rule is commonly known as the 80/20 rule or the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rule.

What is the 80-20 split in an insurance policy? ›

Coinsurance kicks in after the policy deductible is satisfied. One of the most common coinsurance breakdowns is the 80/20 split: The insurer pays 80%, the insured 20%. Copays require the insured to pay a set dollar amount at the time of the service.

What is the 80% rule in insurance? ›

When it comes to insuring your home, the 80% rule is an important guideline to keep in mind. This rule suggests you should insure your home for at least 80% of its total replacement cost to avoid penalties for being underinsured.

How to calculate 80/20 percentage? ›

Solution: 80/20 as a percent is 400%

For instance, in the fraction 80/20, we could say that the value is 80 portions, out of a possible 20 portions to make up the whole. For percentages, the difference is that we want to know how many portions there are if there are 100 portions possible. “Percent” means “per hundred”.

What is the formula for calculating insurance? ›

The simple way to calculate IRV is insurance life cover = current annual income X years left for retirement. For instance, if you are 40, and your annual salary is 15 lacs, the cover you will require is Rs. 3 Crore i.e., 15 lacs X 20.

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