How Frontier Health's Pay-As-You-Go Plan Works for Small Business Owners
Frontier Health's pay-as-you-go plan is a Health Spending Account built for Canadian small business owners who want to offer real health benefits without paying monthly insurance premiums. The way it works is simple: you set a budget per person, your team submits receipts for medical expenses, and Frontier Health reimburses them by e-transfer within 24-48 hours. If nobody submits a claim in a given month, you pay nothing. There are no contracts, no setup fees, and you can cancel anytime.
Here is a complete walkthrough of how the Frontier Health pay-as-you-go model works from signup to reimbursement.
Step 1: Sign Up at Frontier Health
You create your account at app.frontierhsa.ca. The signup process takes about 10 minutes. You enter your business details, add yourself (and your spouse, if applicable), and invite any employees. There is no setup fee and no paperwork to mail in.
Step 2: Choose a Monthly Budget Per Person
Frontier Health asks you to set a monthly health benefit amount for each person on your plan. Most small business owners choose somewhere between $50 and $150 per person per month.
This budget is not a premium. You are not paying it upfront. It is simply the maximum amount each person can claim in a given month. Think of it as a spending limit, not a bill. The money stays in your business bank account until someone actually submits a claim.
You can set different amounts for different people, and you can adjust the budget at any time.
Step 3: Your Team Uses Their Health Benefits
When someone on your team has a health expense — a dental cleaning, a new pair of glasses, a prescription, a massage, a physio appointment, a therapy session — they pay for it out of pocket and keep the receipt. Frontier Health covers anything the CRA recognizes as an eligible medical expense, which includes over 140 categories of healthcare spending.
Step 4: Submit a Photo of the Receipt
The person snaps a photo of their receipt and submits it through Frontier Health. No paper forms, no fax machines, no calling a claims department and waiting on hold. Just a quick photo upload.
Step 5: Frontier Health Reviews and Reimburses
Frontier Health reviews the claim to make sure the expense is CRA-eligible, then sends the reimbursement directly to the person's bank account by e-transfer. This happens within 24-48 hours. The employee receives the money completely tax-free, and the full amount is a 100% tax-deductible business expense for you.
Step 6: Your Business Gets Charged Only for What Was Used
This is where the pay-as-you-go part matters most. With Frontier Health, your business is only charged when a claim is actually submitted and processed. If your team has a busy month at the dentist, you pay for those claims. If nobody submits anything next month, you pay nothing.
Compare that to traditional group insurance, where you pay $150-$300 per person per month in premiums regardless of whether anyone visits a doctor. Those premiums are gone whether your team uses the plan or not.
What Does It Actually Cost?
Frontier Health charges a small annual admin fee and a percentage on each claim processed. Here is what that looks like in practice:
Solo business owner (just you, or you + spouse):
- Annual admin fee: approximately $120/year
- Per-claim fee: 5-8% of the claim amount
Small team (1-3 employees):
- Annual admin fee: approximately $450/year
- Per-claim fee: 5-8% of the claim amount
A Real-World Example
Say you run a three-person team and each person has a $100/month budget through Frontier Health.
Month with $500 in total claims: Your team submits $500 in receipts. Frontier Health reimburses your team $500 tax-free, and your business pays the $500 plus a small processing fee (roughly $25-$40). The full $500 reimbursement is tax-deductible.
Month with $0 in claims: Nobody visits the dentist or picks up a prescription. Your cost with Frontier Health that month is $0. With traditional insurance, you would have still paid $450-$900 in premiums for coverage nobody used.
Over a full year, most small business owners using Frontier Health spend significantly less than they would on a traditional group insurance plan — and their team gets more flexible coverage.
Unused Balances Roll Forward
If someone on your team does not use their full monthly budget, the unused portion rolls forward within the benefit year. So if an employee only claims $30 in January out of a $100 budget, the remaining $70 carries over and is available for future months. This gives your team flexibility to save up for larger expenses like dental work or new glasses.
Why Small Business Owners Choose Frontier Health
Frontier Health was built specifically for small businesses — solo founders, incorporated professionals, and teams of 1-5 people. The pay-as-you-go model means you never waste money on unused premiums, your team gets coverage for everything the CRA allows, and the whole process is fast and simple.
No contracts. No setup fees. No monthly minimums. Cancel anytime.
Sign up for Frontier Health and start offering pay-as-you-go health benefits to your team today.