Products & Services

Blue Priority^SM HSA

You need a more cost-effective way to provide health insurance, and your employees want more choice and control over their health care. Wellmark's Blue Priority HSA solutions pair a Blue Select high-deductible health plan with a Health Savings Account (HSA) to keep premiums lower and put employees in charge of their health care. They get a tax-free way to pay health care expenses and reliable protection against the impact of high-cost services.

How It Works
Blue Select HSA-qualified health plans get employees directly involved in paying for their health care services. These plans enable employees to open an HSA to save and pay for medical expenses — all tax-free. HSA dollars are used to help pay covered health care expenses until the deductible is met. The health plan takes care of covered medical expenses exceeding the deductible.

Employees have greater flexibility and discretion over how they use their health care benefits. They're able to choose in-network or out-of-network doctors for their care and decide when and where their health care dollars are spent. Taking advantage of The Blues^® extensive PPO network can help save them money.

Highlights

• Money-saving alternative. A qualified high-deductible health plan can substantially decrease plan premiums. You can contribute some or all of these savings to your employees’ HSAs.
• Puts employees in charge of their health care. Employees gain more control over how they spend their health care dollars, and an incentive to use health care services wisely. Unused Blue Priority HSA dollars remain in the account from year-to-year and can grow through investment earnings.
• Tax advantages for you and employees. Contributions you make to your employees’ HSAs are tax-deductible*, and employee contributions to their HSAs may be made through pre-tax* payroll reductions.
• Network strength. With 99 percent of South Dakota physicians and 100 percent of the state’s hospitals participating in the Blue Select network, employees won’t have any trouble finding a network provider or facility.
• Coverage anywhere via BlueCard. If employees need care away from home, they're covered by the Blue Card network, with more than 6,000 hospitals and 635,000 doctors worldwide.

* State tax treatment may vary

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