Healthcare

Employers are making changes to reshape their health benefit plans between now and 2017 in order to reduce costs, according to Towers Watson’s 2014 Health Care Changes Ahead Survey. In particular, employers pointed to three specific factors that will help frame employer-sponsored benefits.

  Walgreen Co.’s director of health, benefits and wellbeing knew his company, like most in the U.S., was on an unsustainable path of increasing health care costs combined with employees who didn’t focus on their wellbeing. But when the company’s senior directors started thinking about moving employee health care offerings to a private exchange, he was adamantly against it. …

The IRS has released long-awaited final regulations that clarify market rate of return issues for cash balance and other hybrid plans. The new rules, effective for the first plan year that begins on or after Jan. 1 2016, sponsors of hybrid plans a clearer path forward.

When West Pharmaceutical Services, a medical device company headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, surveyed employees at its corporate head office, it found that roughly 8% of the 400 employees at that location were interested in either receiving more information about special-needs education or receiving immediate help to navigate the school system for their special-needs child.

New plan designs mean "real opportunity" for sales to a key demographic in the long-term care market.

Having an engaging 401(k) plan recordkeeper, partnered with innovative online educational tools, may provide a solution to piercing the Gen Y markets as more and more of the current employee base moves closer to retirement.

Benefit advisers can demonstrate value to current and potential employer clients with strategies to identify high-cost cases and decrease the burden of their medical costs

Offering financial education can provide a big boost to employee productivity, allowing employees to solve financial dilemmas and refocus on work.

It’s a good best practice to give your employer client’s 401(k) plan a good compliance review every year. Here’s a checklist of some IRS suggested corrective mechanisms that can be taken to bring a plan into compliance.

Because there are no state or federal laws defining or regulating workplace bullying, a new federal court decision illustrates why it may be difficult for employees to prove non-discriminatory bullying claims.