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Nuance's new benefit plans... - anonymouse

Posted: Jan 12, 2011

As you all may know, Nuance (formerly known as Focus) has acquired Encompass and OSI companies. So, we get this email today stating a company who formerly handled OSI's HR dept, payroll, benefits, etc. is going to now be handling ours (Nuance). Well as a result, we are going with a different ins company for health benefits. We previously had Blue Cross Blue Shield. I was paying approx. $450 a month for family coverage, and it was a good plan. Now, they are switching to Aetna Ins. with a higher deductible, higher office copays, etc and the premium for family coverage per month is $1,055 or $922 for a higher ded or $1,013 for another plan with a high ded. Okay, this is crazy! I cannot afford $1,000 a month for insurance. From 450 to 1000? On top of that, it has higher ded and copays. I am not enrolling in that insurance, and I don't know how anyone else could afford it either. Maybe some can, I don't know. I think I could find my own individual plan better than that. Geez.

Curious, what are some of the premiums like at some of the other companies for family coverage?

Nuance benefits - 15+ exp

[ In Reply To ..]
In general, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, along with other healthcare plans, have raised there rates, some over 50% (BC/BS). Part of cost is also due to the new mandated healthcare plan by Obama that all must be covered and cannot be denied coverage, and children over 18 and full-time students can still be covered up to age 26. I myself work at Nuance but use my husband's insurance through Kaiser. Hope this helps.

BC/BS TRIPLED my premium a few years ago - Had to drop coverage

[ In Reply To ..]
I got a letter saying my premium was going up, with no warning. In fact, I had already paid for 3 months in advance. I had to cancel and just hope that I wouldn't get sick until I got old enough for Medicare. That was probably around 2007. This is nothing new. I have to work at not hating insurance companies.

Hubby has BCBS through his company - wont believe this

[ In Reply To ..]
We pay almost 500 a month for the insurance (family plan) and then have a 6,000 deductible, after that is met, we pay 20% of all bills till we hit the 10,000 mark!

EVERY YEAR THEY RAISE IT MORE AND MORE AND MORE.

I swear, 5 years ago, we paid $20.00 to go to the doc., $50 for ER and then 20% up to $5000.00! That's it.

We pay all this money and cannot afford to go to the doctor so that those that cannot afford a doctor can go as often as they want! NICE!

I've been wondering why even bother to have insurance - if theres such a high deductible. -sm

[ In Reply To ..]
If I could afford to pay hundreds of dollars for the deductible, I wouldn't need insurance! Also, look at what they're already taking out of our paychecks every month for that insurance! Seems to me, that more than covers the deductible right there. At least that's how it USED to work.

Insurance companies/HMOs are at the top of my list of businesses I'd like to see shut down, and the CEOs put behind bars.

Thinking the same, - and...

[ In Reply To ..]
Before I got married (5 years ago), I paid all medical expenses out of pocket. If I went to the doc, the counter fee was $75.00, but the doctor himself would send back $35.00 to me, so I would pay a total of $40.00 to go to the doctor. I would not get a discount on labs or x-rays, but oh well.

I just paid cash for everthing. The dentist would discount his bill by 25% if I paid cash each visit.

If I just took out one of those major medical policies to cover in case something really big happened and then just pay the doc bills out of pocket, I could save a ton of money.

Well, that's what they mean when they say we're - in a healthcare crisis. Do we have to

[ In Reply To ..]
actually lose our own homes, or our lives, to understand that? We passed healthcare reform, but it contains over 200 amendments added by opponents to keep it from decreasing insurance company profits, and at that some people are trying to repeal it. The insurance industry invested over a million dollars a day for many months and want their payback.

You should go to CareFirst/BCBS website - and compare S/M

[ In Reply To ..]
the rates/deductible amounts, etc. I have my own insurance through them because I knew it would add too much stress on me to constantly worry about losing benefits with my company. Unfortunately, last year I had to increase my deductible amount in order to be able to afford the monthly premium.

High insurance rates - jmt

[ In Reply To ..]
I feel your pain here. I was with OSi for over a year and left them in August. When my husband lost his job, I had to pick up insurance and the cost for family coverage was absurd. And yes it was with Aetna, the coverage was horrible for the cost and for the pay I was making with OSi, it ate up most of my check. You are much better off trying to go out on your own to get insurance and if I wasn't diabetic, I would have definitely gone that route. I left OSi in August, best move I ever made. Good luck with your decision and I wish you good health.

Nuance plans benefit THEM... - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
Their plans benefit no-one but themselves; certainly not their employees. What I really enjoyed was the 15% pay cut for us using the ES editing software. I guess our pay cut pays for their PET INSURANCE that they now offer. Oh, but I can rest easy now knowing that my CAT can get insurance. Oh, but that's right, I'd have to pay for that, too. But how can I pay for it when they whacked my wage?! Time to move on... to what I dunno. Sounds like all MTSOs are short-changing their MTs. Perhaps we should all retire and they can sit in their high towers and figure it out!

Pay cut? - HyperTyper

[ In Reply To ..]
Where was the 15% pay cut? I thought they said the wages stayed the same? Can you explain where you are getting those percentages? The individual insurance rates were pretty good I thought, but I have to agree the family plans were awful.

ES MTs - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
MTs who work on the ES (EditScript) platform took the hit... from 4.7 cents/line to 4 cents/line. I did the math on an average 10,000 line check and it equals 15%. I'm not sure if the standard transcription MTs took a hit, they are at 8 cents/line now. So, yah, if you work on ES accounts and had insurance, the pillage begins February 1st when it all takes effect.

Pay Cut - HyperTyper

[ In Reply To ..]
I work on eScription VR and I wasn't at the 4.7 cpl, but 4 cpl or 5cpl on 3rd shift.

Get outta here! - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
You're kidding me?! So they had different wages for different MTs? What gives? That's a crock! I thought it was a one wage fits all kinda deal? Ugg. Now aren't you glad to know they had some MTs earning more per line than you were? That's just really poor management. I am sorry you weren't being paid my line rate, but at least now you're not choking back the pay cut. It's a horrible feeling.

My first post here, but the MTs from all the 3 companies SM - GaMT

[ In Reply To ..]
that are now Nuance (Focus, Encompass, and OSI) were making different rates of pay, I'm pretty sure.

Why so surpised? New hires at my MTSO are paid 2 cpl - less than I was when I hired in. nm

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Surprised because... - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
I am surprised that MTs working for the same company would have vastly different pay rates, and then all of a sudden get categorized in one lump sum. I've been in the industry 22+ years and am worth a heck of a lot more than 4 cents a line, as should be EVERY SINGLE MT. These junk wages are a joke. Seriously considering getting out of the industry. It has failed us miserably. Corporate moguls are eating the profits and getting fat in their high towers. It is disgusting. It is corporate communism at its best. The big get BIGGER and squash all the little fellas that got them so BIG!

I wasn't getting 4.7 cpl either, just 4 cpl... - anonymouse

[ In Reply To ..]
I work on ES VR also, but I was just making 4 cpl on VR anyway, 8 cpl on standard transcription. No wonder they don't share IM IDs. They said they frown on it and don't want MTs talking when they should be working but I think they may not want some MTs to know what others are making, etc. :)

Yeah, or... - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
Yes, don't want us actually knowing what other gals are making... or what other gals are getting all the work and who sits without, and has to use her PTO to cover the slow periods when others are working!

I wish you all would state where you orig. worked, Focus, Encompass, or OSi. - Encompass/Nuance MT

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't think we're talking "real" discrepancies here, since we don't even know which original MTSO you're talking about.

Are you talking about the same original companies? - Were you OSi?

[ In Reply To ..]
Three companies coming together now: Focus, Encompass and OSi. Different rates for each. You had a cushy deal, wherever you are, with the 4.7 cpl on ES compared to what Encompass pays for that.

Focus - anonymouse

[ In Reply To ..]
I have originally been with Focus all along.

Focus QC Pay - Dee

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm a QC editor at Focus, and I make .05 per line (.06 when I work a late night), but there is often no work. I constantly receive IMs and e-mails asking us to flex our time because of OOW or low work volume status. That is one of the BIG problems I find with Focus.

It's Disgusting! - Fed Up

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm QA and I'm moving on. I was so excited about getting BCBS (just sent me the email 2 days before the "new benefits" email to enroll) because it was great insurance. I can't afford the new insurance. That's over half my pay, easy. Ridiculous!

I already spend more than half my pay on rent. If - ins. eats up the rest, then how do we eat?

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

Good luck finding an individual plan for less-- - typetypetypeaway

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't know what state you live in, but I live in NJ. When I was laid off and could not continue my group insurance with Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield (lack of number of employees on payroll), I had to look at individual plans for my husband and myself. My insurance for both of us now is about $1300 a month with a $2500 deductible, $30 copay for regular and $50 for specialist and this is just for one year. It gets renewed in July and I know it will go up. So I would think a family plan would be even higher. So my suggestion is to think hard before terminating that plan until you get costs for some of the others. I only chose BC/BS because the other ones (Oxford, Aetna, etc) were even higher unless I wanted HMO which I could not do. Good luck.

Did you get your email? - MaMel

[ In Reply To ..]
So, did you get the email from the VP/GM? Me thinks they got some feedback they didn't care for, huh? Perhaps they have upset a few employees over their outrageous insurance premiums and pay scale "adjustments." ROFL! I really, REALLY loved this sentence: "We are also nearing other key milestones in this integration." Oh goody goody gumdrops! Can't WAIT see what else they will deal out next.

Great way to pay less - my take on this

[ In Reply To ..]
I think these companies do this on purpose. They get these plans that people cannot afford, so they dont use them. This lets the company off the hook for the extra costs of their contribution. Its total crap.

So the company I work for I used to pay $168 dollars a month, then they had a "Rate hike" supposedly that more than doubled my cost. They only paid $250 a month per person.. but because it was so high, I could not afford it and did not take the benefit..

So they now save $250 on me that they previously had to pay.. and probably $250 on everyone else that cannot afford to pay it.

I think they do it on purpose, and Im not sure the hike is nearly as high as they always tell us.. because its to their benefit if we dont take it.

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