Brian M. Kalish

Everyone knows healthier employees are more productive employees, and focusing on wellness can help achieve that goal. But there are two things vital to us all missing from the equation: vision and hearing.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General intends to focus its investigations in fiscal year 2015 on the public health care exchanges, adding 5-10 reviews over the course of the year.

Despite predictions that private exchange enrollment will hit 30 million in 2017, employers remain cautious about them, including those early adopters who say they had little choice but to move to one.

Rather than drop benefits in the Americas, which Hilton says would hurt not only its employees but hotel guests too, the company decided to move to a private exchange. During that process, one of the biggest critics of the move was the company’s vice president of benefits.

Industry analysts praise one-stop shopping tools as a positive reason why many employers are moving to private exchanges. At Xerox’s Buck Consultants, 100% of employees enrolling through the company’s exchange engaged with its technology — and made an average of 11.5 return visits, says Sherri Brockhorst, leader of the RightOpt exchange at Buck.

With the Supreme Court set to hear King v. Burwell today, subsidies in the federal health care exchange could be eliminated for millions of enrollees. Leading up to this, Employee Benefit Adviser and Employee Benefit News have covered the story from all angles. Here is a roundup of our coverage in the case.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear the case of King v. Burwell, with the legality of federal subsidies for ACA exchange enrollment hanging in the balance. If the high court rules that subsides on the federal health care exchange are illegal, consumers would on average see premiums rise 255% — but industry analysts say it is unlikely to get to that point.

In a Congressional committee hearing Thursday, Kevin Counihan, the CEO of Healthcare.gov, was repeatedly grilled by members of Congress for details on enrollments, tax data and coverage for immigrants, but failed to provide answers to many questions asked.

As more regulations continue to come into effect for employers under the Affordable Care Act, some with financial penalties, many employers report they are not prepared to deal with the slate of changes.

Republicans hoping to use a little-known rule to repeal the Affordable Care Act may have hit a snag.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Friday morning announced it will implement a special enrollment period for individuals who learn, at the time they file their taxes, of the Affordable Care Act-mandated tax penalty for not having health insurance coverage.

Both the Obama administration and states that run their own health insurance marketplaces are considering an extra enrollment period for tax filers who learn they owe a fine for not carrying insurance.

Five years down the road, the insurance broker’s role in health insurance may be diminished, largely due to exchanges, consultants say. The role of the broker will change greatly in the process, they say, but in the near term it is a mixed story.

As many brokerages offer a private exchange to their clients, carriers who run their own are working extra hard to educate customers about their offerings, says Lisa Feddema, director, exchange management, Health Care Service Corp.

Upwards of 200,000 people who signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and may not be legal residents of the U.S. are set to lose their insurance coverage, the government said Wednesday.

In a special election, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners has chosen a “leader with broad experience” to head the organization as its president-elect.

Many of the private health care exchanges on the market today are adopting hybrid models of benefits administration and benefits enrollment, says Scott Carver, president of PlanSource, a cloud-based benefits exchange provider. The company operates its own proprietary exchange and a white label solution that builds exchanges for third parties. EBA spoke with Carver about what makes exchanges unique and his predictions for exponential growth in the field.

Although the industry anxiously awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of providing subsidies to people buying health insurance through the federal marketplace, few Americans have heard of the case that is set to go before the high court in March.

In an EBA exclusive, the leader of Hawaii’s public health care exchange pinpoints failures and shares why it’s a business imperative that no one be left out of the system.

The Affordable Care Act’s coverage provisions are now estimated to cost the government 20% less than originally estimated for the five-year period ending 2019, according to updated analysis from the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation.