Have You Considered a Managed Health Care Plan Lately?

Managed health care plans are a variation from traditional private medical insurance plans like indemnity health insurance. Managed care was first tried in the United States on a large scale about 20 years ago. The advantage to these plans is that they are structured to keep provider costs under control which results in more predictable and less out of pocket costs for plan members to receive medical services.It helps to understand the basis for how doctors, hospitals and other medical service providers get paid in the United States in order to understand why and how managed care plans evolved and will continue to evolve. Medical care in the United States is a fee for service arrangement between patients and doctors. Doctors provide specific health services like yearly checkups or treatment for minor aches or ailments for routine care and oversee hospitalization and treatment for more serious illnesses or medical conditions. Patients pay fees to the doctor, hospital and other medical service providers for each of these services.A traditional indemnity plan is based on reimbursing a portion of the fees, usually 80%, that a patient pays for medical services. Usually, a doctor or hospital will bill the indemnity insurance for their portion of the charges first and then bill the patient for the remaining amount to pay. For many people, indemnity insurance can leave them under insured, meaning these people have a hard time paying 20% of medical service charges in addition to having to meet a health insurance deductible at 100% of the charges before the insurance starts paying anything for services billed.Managed care plans can be a better option for people that are under insured when using an indemnity plan. These plans work with medical service providers like doctors and hospitals to agree in advance the fees that will be paid for specific medical services. In turn, members that use these plans agree to give up flexibility of choice and choose a doctor or hospital from within the network of providers approved by the plan. Plan members might also pay a higher premium. In exchange for this, members usually only owe a fixed dollar amount copay for routine medical services with no or a lower health insurance deductible.In summary, managed care plans can provide more predictable and lower out of pocket costs for those people that find themselves under insured with other types of private health insurance. What you give up in flexibility of choice in your doctor or hospital, you can gain with more financial piece of mind when planning how to pay for your health care expenses.

Commercial Mortgage Financing – Types That Are Available Today

If you have ever wanted to know what the different types of Commercial Mortgage Financing are available…there are many. Each type refers to different types of properties and verification methods. Not all Commercial Lenders offer all types of Business Investment Services so be aware and get a good Commercial Finance Broker and they will be able to set you up with the appropriate Commercial Property Financing that fits your needs,Apartments – These can be solid investment opportunities. Apartments are generally a great form of security for a Apartment Loan Company. So long as the property is managed well, apartment buildings will serve as a long term positive cash flow as well as generate equity as time passesHealth Care Facilities – A Commercial Mortgage can also be used to finance health care facilities. Commercial Investment Services like this type of investment for two strong reasons.  First, you are investing in a conventional business that is experiencing an incline in popularity as well customer base. Secondly, as with most real estate,  an investment in land and facilities will appreciate over time, regardless of temporary market fluctuations, which will create equity for you. Purchasing of building this type of property and business is very attainable when you see just how available a Business Property Loans really are.Industrial – Most traditional Commercial Lending institutions have programs for Industrial properties which will permit investment in industrial properties. Reason being is that investments in industrial property is generally a solid investment as there will always be a need for industrial space, regardless of the up and downs in the market.Manufacturing – Companies looking to expand by increasing your manufacturing capacity may find that a Commercial Mortgage may be the way to accomplish this. An Industrial Mortgage can help to finance the growth of your manufacturing facilities and thereby increase your business in the process.Warehouse – Most companies can not continue to grow and be thriving without increased capacity for inventory. Should you find your business is ready to do just that… take it to the next level…a Commercial Mortgage may be just what you need. Several large Commercial Lending firms have Warehouse Mortgage Services designed to finance your warehouse expansion, so with that said, don’t procrastinate or hesitate to contact your Commercial Loan Broker today for your planned expansion.Retail Structures – Building or buying a store? Retailers need financing to, increase their exposure and generate new business as well as maintain the business they have.  Retailers use Retail Investment Mortgage Financing when they are ready to fund projects as well. Office Complexes – One of the best rental opportunities is Office Parks and Office Buildings as they are less likely to be vacant as that of retail space. And yes, they are also users of Commercial Mortgage FinancingI am sure you see the trend here…Commercial Mortgage Financing can be used in practically any industry for any kind of commercial property. Speak with your Business Finance Broker when you are ready to invest in a Commercial Real Estate opportunity.

Build a Small Business Network to Help Your Business Succeed

As a small business owner you can often feel alone, even when surrounded by many people.How is this possible? The answer is that many small business owners keep their business challenges to themselves. They don’t want employees, or customers, or suppliers, or family and friends for that matter, to know that they have business issues that might be difficult to manage.If this describes your business environment, consider building a business network to help you manage your challenges and grow your business.What is a small business network? In this instance it is a network of either similar or dissimilar small businesses that work together to help each other solve their business issues and also to help each other manage and grow their businesses.Let’s examine an example of a small business network for similar businesses. A group of between eight and twelve business owners in the same industry but in non-competing locations set up a peer business network. They get together (either face-to-face or online) at a regularly scheduled day and time (maybe monthly or quarterly) to discuss their small business strategy and issues and they each ask for, and get, feedback from the rest of the group — all experienced business owners of similar type businesses.Some of the discussion might center on human resource issues such as training, hiring, firing, turn-over rates, and comparative wages or salaries. Other discussions might be on common customer centric issues such as turn-around times, over promising and under delivering, quality, service, handling difficult customers. Some sessions might focus on business planning, marketing planning, sales planning or results from plans.To form this type of group, business owners could meet through national or international industry trade associations. To make this type of network work, the participants must sign confidentiality agreements and non-compete agreements — even though today the businesses are non-competing, there is no guarantee that tomorrow they won’t be competing. It is important that legal advice is obtained at the start of setting up this type of network — your group will need to know what is allowed or not allowed by government competition acts.The advantage of this type of network is that all participants already know and understand the industry and can bring that knowledge and expertise to the discussions.Now, let’s examine an example of a small business network for dissimilar businesses.This type of network would work best in a group of not less than eight and not many more than twelve business owners (too small and the input is weakened; too large and it’s hard to have a voice or hear what’s going on). This group would get together on a regular basis (likely monthly) and review each business’ progress, operations, challenges, or the designated topic of the month. Since this is a network of non-competing, dissimilar businesses, the group could be local and meetings could be face-to-face.An advantage for local meetings is that the group would be operating in the same economic climate and would have a thorough understanding of what that means to local businesses. It would be relatively easy to form a local group by meeting businesses through local small business associations.Topics could be selected in advance by month, by quarter, by year and each business owner would attend a network meeting prepared to discuss issues surrounding that topic. For example, one month’s topic could be about reducing the cost of financing and sharing tips and tactics. Another month’s topic could be about the use of the best and most successful recruiting methods for that local area. Another month’s topic could be on creating a business plan and the necessary tools to do so.In this type of network it is also important to have confidentiality agreements and non-compete agreements at the start of the network meetings. You will want to have the assurance that if someone leaves the group that they won’t share confidential information with others.The advantage of this type of network is that you can more easily set this group up in your local market so that face-to-face meetings would not be difficult and that you might actually get more out-of-the-box thinking from business owners outside of the industry who are not constrained by past practices.For both types of networks, use an outside facilitator to ensure that the group stays on track and that each member gets out of the network what it needs (its reason for joining). The concept of a business network is to provide small business owners with a small business advisory group to test solutions, find answers, change old ways of doing things, and more. In large businesses, that type of network support typically comes from other departments or management. In small businesses, a strong small business network is part of an overall business community that becomes part of the infrastructure for your business’ success.