Healthcare

The ink is barely dry on our 2011 calendars, and here in Palm Beach County we're already finding ourselves in the thick of a request for proposal for our self-insured health plan for 2012.

Days after delivering what he called a "little speech" (also known as the State of the Union address), President Obama vehemently defended the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, rallying the audience at a Families USA conference in Washington, D.C., that "we are moving forward."

Employers like to look over one another's shoulder when it comes to benefits programs, and benchmarking data provides this opportunity.

Health care reform has been good for business - true or false? These days, it still depends on whom you ask. Ask a producer who sells critical care insurance, though, and the answer you'll probably get is "true."

Voluntary benefits is often referred to as "worksite marketing." Many carriers, in fact, refer to their voluntary products as "worksite voluntary benefits." Recent developments in enrollment technology, however, are rapidly making the term "worksite" obsolete and no longer relevant to the voluntary benefits process. The term "worksite" derives from how these benefits have had to be enrolled. As products that are voluntarily purchased by employees, the only consistently effective means of presenting (and selling) them have been one-on-one employee meetings with licensed benefit counselors (enrollers) at the workplace during the workday.

The notion that you can do well by doing good is alive and well in the 401(k) and qualified plan marketplace. Advisers, however, are walking a tightrope. With a big push by the government for more disclosure and stricter fiduciary standards, broker-dealers are struggling to allow their advisers to act as fiduciaries without opening themselves to unwanted liability. Meanwhile, plan sponsors are looking for advisers who can help their participants be more successful in retirement yet limit their costs, liability and work.

As the economy starts to stabilize, retirement plan experts say plan sponsors need to emphasize certain elements of their retirement education and advice programs to get workers back on track and saving for retirement.

Advisers looking for innovative ways to help their clients attack health care costs now have a new arrow in their quiver: the nascent field of surgery benefit management. SBM combines the use of medical centers of excellence and medical tourism with data mining, predictive modeling, health coaching and case management.

Racial and economic disparities in the U.S. health care system may come down to access to medical care, hints a new report on appendicitis.

The United States is decades behind the rest of the world in parental leave policy, a Human Rights Watch report said on Wednesday.