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Two of the largest U.S. drugstore chains, said they are running short of influenza vaccines as an earlier and more severe flu season drives up demand from Michigan to New Jersey.

UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. provider of medical coverage, will join the Mayo Clinic in a research alliance designed to merge insurance records and medical data to find more efficient ways to deliver care.

Business owners are counting on increased referrals for a significant portion of their development plans. How successful those efforts will be is determined in large part by how well strategic plans are written. Read on for some key elements to address.

Today’s business world is global, and providing insurance mandated by the government for contractors with employees at oversea military bases can present a great opportunity for a broker, says EBA Blogger Sam Fleet.

Whether it’s a shooting in the workplace, a toxic chemical spill, industrial accident or natural disaster, the majority of employers are unprepared to deal with a workplace crisis, says long-time crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein, author of “Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management.” Bernstein shares five tips for creating and executing a successful crisis management plan.

Some employers assert that the play-or-pay mandate will raise their costs and force them to make workforce cutbacks. As a result, a number are considering eliminating their health care coverage altogether and instead paying the penalty on their full-time employees. While the “pay” option might be worth considering, there are strong reasons why employers should look carefully at all of their options and do their best to calculate the actual outcomes of each.

A plan sponsor may use the Voluntary Correction Program to correct a failure to timely adopt a written 403(b) plan; plan sponsors should mail their submissions to the IRS Service Center in Covington, Ky.

With the core of PPACA set to begin in 2014, employers need to start making decisions now. UBA CEO Thom Mangan says that while the “pay” option might be worth considering, there are strong reasons why employers should look carefully at all of their options and do their best to calculate the actual outcomes of each.

With defined contribution plans continuing to assume greater importance in employees’ achieving retirement security, global consulting firm Mercer believes that 2013 is shaping up as a year when many sponsors will take a fresh look at their plans’ objectives, investment options and communications with participants. “It’s no longer a situation where DC plan sponsors can simply ‘set it and forget it’”, says Amy Reynolds, a partner in Mercer’s retirement business and U.S. defined contribution leader. “The trend is for plan sponsors to regularly evaluate whether their DC plans are successful for both the organization and its employees. As a result, plan sponsors are more active in reviewing plan objectives, more prescriptive when it comes to investment options and more invested in communicating with employees who want to understand how to achieve their own retirement income goals.” Here are 10 steps Mercer recommends for this year:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that influenza is widespread in 47 states, but certain regions may soon start to see fewer cases.