Healthcare

Private disability insurance gets employees back to work more consistently than public programs yet the industry still struggles to get employees enrolled in the benefit.

Health care reform applies nondiscrimination testing to all group health plans, including fully insured ones. The problem is that planning with the rules currently in place is like trying to build a skyscraper on a piece of swampland in the Florida Everglades.

With health care appeals, a plan administrator can simply grant the appeal .

The study from Truven Health Analytics examined insurance claims data for over 6.5 million emergency department visits in 2010 and found that just 29% of patients actually required immediate attention in the emergency room.

As more companies embrace consumer-driven health care models and prepare for the full implementation of health care reform, employees need voluntary benefits more than ever. This chart pack includes the latest data on voluntary benefits from the Aflac WorkForces Report and UBA’s Ancillary Products Survey.

Technology company Enova is named among the top 50 employers for Gen Y workers.

Most observers agree that target date funds are easier and safer to use for both retirement plan participants and plan sponsors.

In-Plan Life-Time Income Guarantees provide new opportunities for plan participants

Using health care analytics — sometimes called business intelligence — researchers and consultants are mining clinical and claims data to discover gold standards and establish best practices for prevention, treatment and self care and, ideally, help reduce waste, abuse and fraud. The goals are simple but have remained elusive.

People from Maryland will have 13 insurance companies to choose from on their health insurance exchange, state officials announced this morning. The insurance options for California residents on the state’s exchange were also announced late last week amid reports that higher premiums may await those individuals.