Employer Strategies

Commentary: Pharmacy benefit managers and benefit brokers keep a watchful eye for profit-seekers looking to take advantage of loopholes in the health care delivery system.

The IRS’ new draft forms for employer reporting on health care coverage unveils a glimpse of the administrative onus in store for benefit advisers and their employer clients working to comply with the Affordable Care Act.

In a landmark challenge to traditional labor law, the National Labor Relations Board is attempting to lump together McDonald’s and its independent franchises as joint employer, which leaves many questions on what this could mean for other collective benefit plan structures.

Benefit advisers working with small to mid-size employers to boost benefit participation can focus on cost-saving measures and enrollment and education activities that larger companies are more inclined or able to invest in.

Technical glitches and data-management challenges have dominated HIX headlines at both the state and federal level, with the latest news showing how even the most widely regarded and most vilified state-run operations now share this common thread.

As employers try to figure out how best to prepare their workforces for retirement, experts in the benefits and investment industries recommend that an individual retirement account – either the traditional or Roth version – can be a good complement or standalone option for an employee’s retirement path.

Benefit advisers hoping to stay ahead of the trend of employers transferring some of the burden of increased health care costs to their employees, should be prepared to discuss a variety of new and old cost-sharing strategies, as well as additional cost-saving tools.

Minimum-wage activists seized on a decision against McDonald’s by the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel Tuesday, saying the move may make it easier to unionize workers and ultimately raise wages.

As the part-time workforce in America expands, a growing number of employers are considering voluntary benefit packages as a recruitment and retention tool not only for full-time staff, but their variable hour employees, as well.

Accountable care organizations promise better alignment of health care provider incentives and patient outcomes. Can ACOs revolutionize employer-sponsored health care?