Wellness

Benefit advisers are prepared to make significant investments in internal systems in 2015 to better manage their workload, improve existing relationships with employers and better market themselves to prospects.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is requiring all agents in the individual market in one state be certified to sell in the state’s federally facilitated marketplace — even those who only sell outside of the exchange.

The HIX marketplace may offer Americans more choice when it comes to health insurance, particularly as public exchange options expand, but it continues to complicate life for HR professionals.

A majority of brokers have seen some of their employer clients drop group coverage altogether in reaction to the ACA and double-digit rate increases. That trend, they say, will rise and advisers need to adjust the way they do business if they hope to survive.

Commentary: Are private exchanges just a flex benefits reboot? Lockton’s Mike Smith shares what he thinks will affect their success and adoption.

With an expected 5.5% rise in health care costs in 2015 – the same year the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate takes effect – employers have high hopes that spending can be reined through increased employee consumerism.

On Saturday, the first day of enrollment for 2015 Obamacare plans, the federal insurance website was working well enough that 100,000 people submitted applications, U.S. health secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell reported.

As an effort to comply with the ACA, some employers have been considering offering employees a lump sum of cash to purchase health care coverage on the exchanges, but the DOL now says such an arrangement isn't going to cut it.

Delays, limited awareness, competition and insufficient subsidies among problems outlined in a Government Accountability Office report on state and federal small group exchanges. CMS says brokers will play a key role in any future growth.

Focusing on quality of care, data analytics tools and consumer-oriented websites are innovations discussed at National Business Coalition on Health conference.