New Website Can Help Families Cut Health Care Costs

A new web site, www.healthcaresavingslink.com offers every person in the US – regardless of age or health history – an immediate, affordable way to help cut health care costs. This easy-to-navigate web site offers several options for the Best Benefits Discount Health Card, which gives its cardholders and their family members access to one of the nation’s largest provider networks. This program has proved its value year after year; in 2005, the 6 million Best Benefits’ member families saved over $109 million on prescription drugs alone.

The plans available through Health Care Savings Link are especially valuable to the millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, and those whose employers have recently reduced or eliminated health insurance.

Health care costs rank among Americans’ top concerns. This is partly because so many Americans, even those with health coverage, aren’t covered for “extra” benefits beyond basic medical care. Yet, from a consumer viewpoint, dental care, vision care and prescription drugs are necessities, not “extras”. Health Care Savings Link offers an affordable, easy-to-get answer.

The Facts

• 46.6 million people, or 15.9% of the US population, were without health insurance in 2006, according to the U.S. Census. 32.7% of Hispanics were uninsured.

• An additional 16 million people are underinsured, and they often spend more than 10% of their incomes on medical care, according to a 2005 survey by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation dedicated to improving healthcare practice and policy.

• The Census Bureau also reports that the vast majority of uninsured people are in working families, as employer-sponsored insurance is becoming less accessible and affordable for spouses, dependents and retires.

A Surprise Discovery

Several years ago, two former Fortune 500 executives, Arthur Goodwin and Stephanie Schus, discovered the Best Benefits Discount Health Card. They realized they had stumbled upon one of America’s best-kept secrets. The card is not insurance. Instead, it is a plan that enables every member of a family to get considerable discounts on physician, vision and dental services and products, such as prescription drugs and eyeglasses. The membership costs just pennies a day, and one membership covers all family members regardless of age or health history.

Why Wasn’t This Widely Known?

Discount Development Services, the company that created the Best Benefits program in 1995 and is now called Coverdell & Company, Inc., didn’t (and still doesn’t) sell to individuals. The millions of people who had the Best Benefits card had signed up for it through a membership organization or through their employer’s health plan. Other individuals could not take advantage of the plan.

“More People Should Have Access to This”

Arthur and Stephanie were determined to make the Best Benefits card directly available to unaffiliated individuals and their families. They teamed up with web expert Larry Stromberg, to form Health Care Savings Link and launch this new web site. The site can help anyone lower out-of-pocket health care costs – especially costs for frequently used services which insurance often doesn’t cover, such as dental and vision care,

How Can Someone Start Saving Money?

Today, anyone in the US can get real savings on their health care by going to www.healthcaresavingslink.com. The secure online Sign Up takes about a minute.

The site lists the discount plans offered. Dental Care savings range between 10 and 50%, Vision Care between 10 and 60%, depending on provider and specific services. People can find the health care professionals in their zip code area who are in the provider network through a Look Up function on the site.

The company administering the Best Benefits Medical Discount Plans is now the largest provider and manager of reduced fee health care plans in the country, with more than 6 million members, covering over 10 million people. It also has the country’s most extensive network of health care professionals – more than 400,000 providers, covering urban, suburban and rural areas.

Card Holders can be assured of the quality of the Best Benefits plans and the company’s ethical practices, as Coverdell & Company, Inc. (originally Discount Development Services) is a founding board member of the Consumer Health Alliance, the trade association of providers of discount health plans. High double digit membership renewal rates speak to the high customer satisfaction with Best Benefits Discount Health Cards.

The partners of www.healthcaresavingslink.com “…hope that through our efforts, more individuals will be able to save significant money on their health care expenses”.