Lydell C. Bridgeford

Health insurance exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may pose a threat to COBRA.

There is a dramatic difference in how employers tackle health cost trends. Some are doing "everything possible to control costs and improve workers' health, while others have not been willing or able to do it as aggressively," Helen Darling, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health told attendees at the Health Benefits 9-1-1: Heightened Urgency to Control Cost and Improve Health conference.

As employers start to conduct cost-benefit analysis on providing health insurance under the health law, they should also study some proposals by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Orthokeratology, also known as overnight Ortho-K, is a treatment in which an individual wears special contact lenses while he sleeps at night. The lenses correct the shape of the cornea, so when the patient wakes up his vision is good for the day.

The economy and health reform may have prompted the youngest workers at U.S. companies to take a deeper interest in workplace benefits, according to online research conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Unum.

Despite the drive to make all things digital during the 2010 open enrollment season, employers didn't turn away from good, old-fasioned face-to-face meetings. Also, complying with the first phase of the health law was a breeze.

Some employers are investing more time and resources to find out whether workers are tobacco-free and in the process are rewarding those who pass muster with lower health premiums or financial rewards.

HighRoads, a Boston-based compliance and benefits management firm, conducted a survey months after approval of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, finding that, in general, employers believed that outsourcing costs for health benefits administration will increase because of the law.

Workplace clinics give literal meaning to the phrase "Taking care of our employees." However, savvy-thinking employers are taking strategic steps to determine what's in and what's out when it comes to health services rendered onsite.

During the recession and the slow economic recovery, American workers routinely heard the phrase “do more with less." And they did. Productivity gains by U.S. employers were always held up as a bright spot in the down economy.

New research by Towers Watson shows that defined benefit plans achieved better rates of return than defined contribution plans in 2008 by the widest margin since the early 2000s. However, in 2009, DC plans outperformed DB plans.

March Madness means some workers are paying more attention to their bracket results than responding to workplace e-mails. Two new surveys show how the NCAA basketball tournament may be affecting your workplace.

Government regulators responsible for enforcing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act recently announced that they plan to wait until Jan. 1, 2012 to enforce certain provisions related to internal claims and appeals.

A survey that gauges employers’ attitudes and strategies on the different stages of implementing a wellness program finds that more senior-level executives are supporting the company’s wellness initiatives.

Even after plan design changes, employers can expect their health care costs to increase by 7% in 2011, a sure sign that an aggressive approach to plan design is here to stay, finds research by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson.

Conventional wisdom holds that a large dental network can deliver appropriate access and cost savings for employers, but MetLife experts contend that other attributes can come into play on adding value to dental plans.

Despite a nascent economic recovery, the momentum to reduce employee benefits isn’t waning, according to a new poll by the Society for Human Resource Management.

New data from Aon Hewitt show 57% of 401(k) plan sponsors offered automatic enrollment in 2010, compared to 24% in 2006. Thirty-six percent of plan sponsors who don't offer the feature said they are likely to add it in 2011.

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

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