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News release: Colorado - Denver/BoulderNovember 15, 2004 For more information, call: Kaiser Permanente offers increased access to care with new heath plan and financial products Denver, CO – Kaiser Permanente Colorado is expanding its health plan offerings to include new qualified deductible plans and a suite of innovative CarePaySM financial services, including the CarePay Health Savings Account (HSA). These offerings provide employers and consumers with increased access to Kaiser Permanente's high quality care through a broader range of coverage and premium levels and new options to save and pay for health care needs. Kaiser Permanente Colorado now offers the Kaiser Permanente Deductible Health Plan with HSA Option in the individual and employer group markets. The deductible health plan is HSA qualified, in accordance with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. The plan allows employers to offer quality health care while protecting their bottom line. It also offers consumers the opportunity to manage their health care spending, control their health insurance premiums, and save for future health-related expenses. "Kaiser Permanente is committed to providing consumers more access to our excellent physicians and medical teams. These new plans offer both employers and consumers a wide variety of benefits to choose from," said vice president of marketing, sales and business development Wade Overgaard. Kaiser Permanente has collaborated with Wells Fargo Bank, one of the nation's most recognized financial institutions, to act as custodian of the HSA and to make it easy and convenient for members to open an HSA. The CarePay HSA will offer members 24/7 personalized service, access to a number of money market and mutual funds, competitive pricing, and debit card access to the HSA funds they have set aside for qualified health-related expenses. Kaiser Permanente selected Wells Fargo as its preferred provider of HSAs; however, members maintain the option of choosing other financial providers for their HSA needs. HSA funds are portable, owned and managed by the individual, and can be rolled over for future use. In addition, consumers do not pay taxes on withdrawals for qualified health-related expenses, interest earned, or investment gains from HSA funds. Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit health plan and the largest private health care provider in Colorado. For the second year in a row, the National Committee for Quality Assurance has rated Kaiser Permanente among the top ten accredited health care organizations in the country for clinical quality. Kaiser Permanente cares for more than 417,000 members in the Denver/Boulder and Colorado Springs areas. Kaiser Permanente physicians and care teams focus on prevention as well as curing disease, all in an effort to help patients live well and thrive.
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