Learn about ASCA’s New Members-Only 401(k) Plan

Charlie Leonard of ASCA’s public affairs team talks with ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice about the new 401(k) plan ASCA is making available to its members. In this brief introduction, Prentice explains how ASCA members can request a free evaluation of their current retirement plans or learn more about the benefits of establishing a first-time retirement plan for their employees. Prentice also discusses the time and cost savings ASCA members could realize when they participate in this new ASCA benefit.

Transcript

Narrator:   0:06
Welcome to the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast brought to you by ASCA, the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association. ASCA represents the interests of outpatient surgery centers of every specialty and provides advocacy and resources to assist them in delivering safe, high-quality, cost-effective patient care. As with all of ASCA’s communications, please check to make sure you are listening to or viewing our most up-to-date podcasts and announcements.

 Charlie Leonard:   0:37
Welcome to the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast. My name is Charlie Leonard. I'm a member of the ASCA public affairs team and the host of this episode. I'll be joined today by Bill Prentice, ASCA’s CEO. Bill was asked to come on the podcast to talk about an important new benefit that is being rolled out for ASCA members. Bill, welcome to the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast.

Bill Prentice:   0:58
Thank you, Charlie, I'm really excited to be here and to talk about this new program.

Charlie Leonard:   1:02
So, recently, ASCA announced a new 401(k) retirement plan available exclusively to ASCA members. Bill, what led you and the ASCA Board of Directors to establish this retirement program?

Bill Prentice:   1:14
Well Charlie, the ASCA Board and ASCA team, we're always looking to see if we can find a new product and service we could offer to our members that would be a great value to them and hopefully provide some value that otherwise you wouldn't be able to get. And one of the things that we looked at was 401(k) programs. And we know that many members have a 401(k) benefit, we know that some don't, and when we looked at the opportunity that we might have to be able to reduce expenses and allow ASCs to offer a better benefit to their teammates, this rose to the top of our thinking.

Charlie Leonard:   1:53
So, I understand in formulating the plan, you sought the help of a professional financial advisor and that the plan will be domiciled at a leading insurance and financial services firm known as Empower Retirement. What was ASCA looking for in a financial service partner and how did you make the current selection?

Bill Prentice:   2:11
Great question. We actually spent a lot of time interviewing different firms to make sure that we were going to be adopting a platform that was going to be really easy to use, and Empower, which is affiliated with MassMutual, which has been around for 170 years, just had an amazingly simple platform. Indeed, one of the first things that we did is we had ASCA actually move our 401(k) to that new platform as a first step of making sure that it was everything that we would hope it would be in terms of ease of use for an ASCA member.

Charlie Leonard:   2:51
So, Bill, let's talk about the actual plan. For an ASC that may already have a 401(k) plan, or may be considering one, what are the advantages of switching to or adopting the ASCA plan?

Bill Prentice:   3:02
Well, the idea behind it, obviously, is to make it easier for the administrator of the surgery center to be able to offer this benefit for their employees. And so, obviously, reducing the administrative burden, streamlining the employee benefit offerings and offloading the fiduciary liability and responsibility from the administrator were kind of key characteristics of what we were looking to do. So, in terms of reduced administrative burden for anyone who currently has a 401(k) program, you know you have to fill out that form 5500 every year, you know that there are administrative and maintenance fees that you pay, we're looking to eliminate those and make that a thing of the past for someone who uses this new program benefit. And the way we do that is obviously by making ASCA the named fiduciary for this program, so that ASCA leadership would hire and monitor the program service providers. We would be in charge of reviewing the plan fees and expenses and ensuring compliance with ERISA and other department of labor regulations. So, we're going to offload that burden from the individual ASC and we're going to assume that, so making it easier for our member to just be able to offer this benefit without that burden.

Charlie Leonard:   4:22
How will an ASC be able to make the determination of whether or not this is in their interest? Or if it's in their interest to stick with the plan they already have?

Bill Prentice:   4:31
Great question. One of the things that we're offering is a plan review. So, Empower has consultants that will work with the ASCA member and look at their current 401(k) program and measure it against this program to determine whether or not it makes sense for the ASCA member to want to join this plan program. If they do, those same consultants will create a transition plan to make it easy and seamless to move the member’s 401(k) benefit into this program. And so this is something, by the way, this plan review is something that you as a fiduciary of a 401(k) program need to do every couple years anyway. So, the fact that we're going to do that for you at no cost to you is just another benefit of this.

Charlie Leonard:   5:19
So, there's a financial analysis, there's this paperwork reduction—are there cost savings that could be anticipated as well?

Bill Prentice:   5:26
There is. I mean, that's again one of the other big benefits of this is that by creating a group pricing opportunity, there are going to be economies of scale that are going to allow for the individual ASC member to get cost savings that typically you wouldn't be able to leverage because of the size of your plan. So, by pooling things together, we're going to be able to get pricing and economies of scale that usually big companies are only able to leverage.

Charlie Leonard:   5:56
So that's helpful. And we've now been talking about this from the perspective of the administrator and there's clearly benefits for the administrator. But for individual employees who would be enrolled in this plan, will they have the opportunity to speak directly with a financial advisor about their plan and their contributions?

Bill Prentice:   6:15
They will. There are actually going to be two dedicated consultants who are going to be able to meet with the beneficiaries and talk to them about their retirement goals and help to make sure that they're set up properly in this 401(k) benefit. The other really big advantage of this, and something that made ASCA excited to the extent that we've actually moved our 401(k) benefit into this plan, is the platform that Empower uses is really intuitive and simple to use. And I can say from my own personal experience setting up my own investments, it was really simple and easy and much better than the platform we had used prior. So, I think that an ASCA member that looks at this Empower platform is going to be impressed, certainly with the investment offerings as well as the ease of use in terms of managing your own portfolio.

Charlie Leonard:   7:06
So, how soon will the plan be available to ASCA members and what's the next step for them?

Bill Prentice:   7:12
It's available right now—we actually introduced it last week. And anyone interested in learning more about it can go to the ASCA website, ascassociation.org, they can click on the form, fill it out and they'll be contacted by some of these consultants from Empower, who can start this process of the plan review, which is, again, this is something you should be doing anyway, and will really help to determine about whether or not this program is right for you and right for your employees.

Charlie Leonard:   7:44
Any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Bill Prentice:   7:46
I mean, I appreciate this opportunity to talk about this. I just think that this member association retirement plan is an excellent opportunity for our members to help their employees save for retirement, particularly those who don't currently offer a 401(k) benefit. For those that do, I think this creates an opportunity to hopefully reduce your plan administration burden and cost and allow your facility to focus on what really matters, which is providing high-quality and efficient healthcare. So, the idea behind this benefit is just to make it easier for the administrator to offer a great benefit to their employees while reducing the burden on the administrator but creating a great retirement plan for their employees.

Charlie Leonard:   8:30
Bill, thank you very much for coming on the podcast and taking the time to explain the new benefit to ASCA members.

Bill Prentice:   8:36
Thanks, Charlie. Again, I appreciate that opportunity. And just one last time, if someone is interested in learning more, go to the ASCA website, ascassociation.org, and they can learn more and hopefully reach out and talk with someone from the program.

Charlie Leonard:   8:51
This concludes today's episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast. We thank you for listening. Please continue to follow public health guidance and get vaccinated as soon as you are eligible so we can all stay healthy and safe.