For all of our collective benefits know-how, a type of health care plan has us EBNers stumped. We got word last week of an HRA-esque arrangement called a PFA, or participating funding arrangement. And then we looked at each other and asked, “What is a PFA?”
According to one of the folks at Partners Benefits Group, a Massachusetts-based firm that administers PFAs, a PFA is a medical expense reimbursement plan that differs from an HRA and/or HSA in that money is not placed into an individual account, but rather is averaged over an entire population. A PFA is the “purest form of insurance,” the rep said, because the employer only funds when it is absolutely necessary.
