Healthcare

Plan sponsors who forget to actually do discrimination testing run into all sorts of problems, including the possibility that their plan can be disqualified. To pass the Section 105(h) nondiscrimination rules an employer must meet two separate tests.

Enrollment in health savings accounts jumped to more than 11.4 million as of Jan. 1, 2011, according to an annual census released June 14.

The Health and Human Services Department stopped accepting ERRP applications on May 6, and announced nearly half of the $5 billion earmarked for the program had been approved for payout to employers. However, Senators John Kerry, Debbie Stabenow, Richard Blumenthal and Ben Cardin recently introduced a new measure that would infuse another the $5 billion into ERRP.

Almost 80 percent of employers anticipate that there will be an increased demand for access to savings and investment advice about their 401(k) plans, according to a new survey.

Organizations that integrate workforce and business performance data into their analytics tools are nearly three times as likely to achieve best-in-class performance results as those who don’t, says a new report on workforce analytics from Aberdeen.

As a workplace health and wellness consulting firm, Onlife Health decided to practice what it preaches when the company moved into new offices last fall. Its lease was coming to an end and while its old offices were adequate, the company decided to go to market to see what was available.

As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Yet, according to a recent survey by AARP, 71% of 401(k) plan participants reported that they pay no fees for their plan. When told of the fees, six in ten (62%) were not aware of the amount they pay in fees to maintain their account. Just under one quarter (23%) of those surveyed said that they do pay fees.

This article is the third and final in EBN's annual Preparing for Open Enrollment series, and presents benefits professionals' advice on when and how to rollout a wellness program. The first two articles are available at ebn.benefitnews.com/openenrollment.

In high school, I remember sitting for hours typing documents on printing shells for my school's Ditto machine. While my peers rushed to class in the afternoons, I sat silently typing quizzes, handouts and tests. Other students called me "little miss goody two-shoes," but I didn't mind. I knew working in the school office would teach me the necessary skills to succeed.

When government officials in Orange County, Fla. decided to move to a consumer-driven health plan last fall, they knew they would have to approach communications in a new way. While the county has 6,500 employees, its health plan covers approximately 19,000 lives, including dependents and employees at a few other government agencies.