Healthcare

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.

President Obama signed legislation in April repealing the expanded 1099 reporting requirements in the health care reform law and Small Business Jobs Act.

For the year ending in September 2010, 26.3% of Americans (or 62.8 million people) volunteered through or for an organization at least once, according to the Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among working Americans, 29.2% volunteered, compared to 23.8% of unemployed persons and 22% of those not in the labor force.

The Employers Council on Flexible Compensation is fighting to repeal parts of the health care reform law that establish annual caps for flexible spending accounts and require a prescription for over-the-counter medications to be reimbursed under FSAs. It also is pushing for a change to allow for a cash out at the end of the year in place of the use-it-or-lose-it system that dates back to the 1980s.

Thomson Reuters, a major vendor of business intelligence services and technology spanning multiple industries, intends to divest its health care operations.

A new report from MetLife suggests that financial advisers need to do a better job of educating their clients about the importance of managing their emotions as well as their spending and investing behavior during and close to retirement just as they did — presumably — when they were younger and saving up for their golden years.