Employer Strategies

Employers from Starbucks to ConAgra have begun partnering directly with academic institutions to create specialized programs for their employees. It’s a new spin on an older system, as benefit managers are trying to evaluate the long-term benefits of helping to pay for their workers’ education.

Commentary: Financial services company BOK Financial enlists the help of a benefits communication vendor to boost participation in its consumer-directed health plan.

With increased CFO involvement in health care and benefit decision-making, benefit managers are under more scrutiny than ever before to ensure they efficiently manage their health and benefits vendor relationships.

Millennials are 10% more likely to lack health coverage than adults age 30 and over despite paying lower costs, receiving subsidies based on income and possibly staying on their parent's health insurance policy until age 26.

Many benefit managers – especially those at smaller companies – have never had to help an employee with an accommodation at work or help chart their path back to work after a disability leave.

The White House Friday proposed two rules in response to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision earlier this summer that will allow women to receive contraception coverage if an employer refuses to offer it for religious reasons.

Large employers say they don’t have plans to eliminate health care coverage for active employees in 2015, although 35% say they are considering moving their active employees to a private exchange in 2016 or beyond, a recent survey finds.

Commentary: In this digital information age, it’s imperative to closely guard personal information. If you pay attention to the news, you’re familiar with the concept of identity theft, the potential loss of financial information. However, there’s a new emerging type of identity theft — medical identity theft — and it can literally kill you. Here’s how your employees can protect themselves.

The Obama administration has announced a government workaround to allow employees of religious nonprofits access to birth-control coverage even if their employer has opted not to pay for such medicines.

In anticipation of the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax, U.S. employers are planning to take more aggressive approaches to projected single-digit increases in health care costs by revisiting the viability of consumer-driven health plans and spousal and dependent coverage.