Practice management

Employee benefits attorneys share how employers facing Affordable Care Act reforms can think outside the box for health plan changes in 2014.

Since the institution of 401(k) plans more than 30 years ago, 401(k) providers have escalated the number of plan features to stay competitive within the marketplace. But, in order to be successful today, selling features alone won’t cut it, writes blogger Jerry Kalish.

United Benefit Advisors is the latest group to launch private exchanges, though these are limited to brokers who are UBA members, there is one for small and one for large employers alike.

After Tuesday’s news that CMS wants to recruit more brokers to enroll consumers on Healthcare.gov, the group made the first public announcement Wednesday about a broker-focused website improvement.

Despite taking Healthcare.gov offline for hours a day to make technological fixes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday the site continued to experience multiple slowdowns and displayed error messages to numerous visitors throughout the day.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban workplace and hiring bias on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, finally passed the Senate today. Its future in the GOP-controlled House is less certain.

While the top exchange leader confirmed Tuesday that 70,000 agents have completed federal training, documents obtained by Republicans suggest CMS might begin outreach to get more professionals involved.

President Obama touted this state as exemplary Wednesday in his health care speech, but one broker says there was a loophole for those who were able to enroll.

Business owners may have flirted with the concept of self-funding in the past, and may have even discussed it with their brokers, but implementation has been notoriously slow. That's about to change, writes blogger Sam Fleet.

While the thought may not have occurred to retirement and financial planners, one expert says that with the rising cost of health care, it’s a concept that could save their businesses.