The growing popularity of health-savings accounts, which serve as a kind of medical 401(k) plan for workers, is creating a new business opportunity for a Denver-based call-center company.
StarTek Inc. today will announce plans to offer its call-center outsourcing services to banks and health-insurance providers that together administer health-savings accounts, or HSAs.
“This represents a great growth market for us,” said Michael Griffith, senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We want to be on the front end of this.”
StarTek, a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of $240 million, currently handles calls mostly for telecommunications and cable companies. It employs about 7,500 people in North America, including 1,300 in Colorado.
The company plans to roll out an HSA targeted pilot program this summer in Greeley, hiring several dozen new workers, Griffith said. The number of new positions could swell to several hundred within a few years throughout the company, depending on how quickly employers adopt the accounts and if federal or state governments mandate them, he said.
Maryland already requires companies to offer the plans.
HSAs are tax-sheltered, interest- bearing accounts used in conjunction with a high-deductible health plan. Employees can funnel pretax income into accounts that can be invested and drawn upon for health-care costs.
Proponents see the accounts as one way to address skyrocketing health- care costs. Critics say the plans are complicated, do little to empower consumers and mostly benefit the healthy and wealthy.
About 8 percent of employers in Colorado and Wyoming currently use the accounts, according to a survey of 608 companies released this month by Mountain States Employers Council. About one in five companies, or 22 percent, are considering them, the survey showed.
StarTek plans to work for health- care companies and financial institutions by answering incoming calls made by health-savings account holders, Griffith said. The call-center employees would perform tasks like processing insurance claims, connecting account holders with physicians and executing payments.
Griffith declined to name any current clients.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-820-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
