Wellness

Facing an end-of-the-month deadline, the U.S. government is increasing efforts to enroll millions more Americans into Obamacare, including appeals from President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

When employers focus on incorporating financial education and other wellness programs into their company’s culture, it turns out increasing engagement – as well as having the right tools in place – is a shared goal among both conventional employers and unique businesses such as the NFL Players Association.

The Obama administration last week said it will offer relief to consumers unable to purchase health insurance through state-run exchanges that have been hampered by technical difficulties.

The benefits industry is pushing back against a campaign by some policy-makers to increase federal oversight of self-insured health plans, particularly in regards to the purchasing of stop-loss insurance.

At a Republican think tank-sponsored forum on Thursday, congressmen from the right touted a patient and doctor-focused fix to health reform, but remain split on whether to repeal or make piecemeal changes to the Affordable Care Act. They also voiced concerns about employees’ ability to make ends meet as a consequence of the law.

Employers are begging for information on compliance with the Affordable Care Act, and as their benefit adviser you can and should offer them guidance — or risk losing them to an adviser who will. Attorney Peter Marathas of Proskauer Rose LLP has outlined four ACA issues you should already be discussing with your clients.

Consumers shopping on the Obamacare exchanges are thriftier than the general public, with more picking health plans based on price rather than their choice of doctors, a study found.

However employers’ decisions have been determined by the Affordable Care Act, the reasons to continue investing in employee health and productivity remain.

The University of Michigan has been fine-tuning its wellness champion network for over 20 years. Over that time, wellness champs have morphed in number and organizational role, but have always played “an important role for helping to develop our culture of health across the University," explains Karen Schmidt, associate director of wellness and health culture at the University of Michigan.

At Oracle’s first-ever HCM World conference, the technology company demonstrated its commitment to human resources customers, explaining its strategy for Modern HR in the Cloud, which is focused on meeting the needs of employees in a large, dispersed workforce.