Healthcare

Tips for using Twitter and other social media for business communication, including benefits information.

Random acts of workplace kindness boost employee satisfaction and engagement levels at The Online 401(k). Maybe everyone should RAWK out more.

Nonqualified deferred compensation plans are on the upswing.

The use of online calculators and retirement advisers has been linked to higher levels of retirement confidence.

On the second day of arguments over one of the country’s most polarizing issues, the court’s majority suggested the federal government overstepped its authority with the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits the benefits available to gay couples.

Eighty-three percent of 800 large and mid-size American employers — representing more than 7 million workers — now use some form of incentive to get employees more aware of their health status, Aon Hewitt polls show.

Humana Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. rose after congressional researchers said the U.S. Medicare program has the authority to raise payments to insurers.

In a recent letter to Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris, six members of the Congressional Black Caucus warned that if the DOL’s 2010 fiduciary proposal is re-proposed this year without significant changes, the rule “could disparately impact retirement savers and investment representatives in the African-American community,” according to the letter.

On the last day of 2012 the IRS updated the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS), published as Rev. Proc 2013-12. The program allows plan sponsors to declare, fix and pay penalties (where applicable) for certain operational or demographic missteps under the “voluntary correction program” (VCP)

Apparently some plan sponsors and even advisers overlook a basic resource when conducting 401(k) enrollment and education sessions: The TPA. “Advisers are sometimes surprised to see a TPA at the meeting,” says Beth Harrington, president of Benefit Resources Inc. in Sacramento. “That shocks me.”