Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

After pulling together the efforts of a high-powered team of journalists, benefits experts, videographers and stylists — okay, maybe not the stylists or videographers — Employee Benefit News is happy to announce the launch of BenefitsTV, its new video series that brings you face-to-face with benefits experts and newsmakers as they share their insights on the industry news of the day.

The technology to support these types of telemedicine is advancing speedily along. The speed of physicians and health plans adopting it, however, is a different — and much slower — story. I talked to Eric Demers, senior vice president of health and life sciences at MEDecision, about why telemedicine is so slowly advancing and the role employers can play to push progress along.

Voluntary turnover overall has dropped 21% since 2008 to 7.3%, and voluntary turnover rates among high performers dropped from 5.7% in 2006 to 3.7% in 2009, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the latest in benefits conventional wisdom, news or analysis, I’d like to invite you to send me your bio and a writing sample to be considered for one of EBN’s open Contributing Editor slots.

Soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a "monstrosity," and that he and his newly empowered Republican colleagues would seek to "replace it with commonsense reforms that will bring down the cost of health care in America."

Should Republicans gain a majority in the House and/or the Senate, the long-known opponents to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could "bar the Department of Health and Human Services from writing the necessary regulations to implement” health care reform, as well as "bar appropriations of the necessary funds," says one health care expert.

It’s November, which means three things: open enrollment, turkey dinners and long-term care. Today (Nov. 1) marks the beginning of Long-Term Care Awareness Month, a concentrated push to get employees thinking about how they plan to receive and fund care in their later years.

Employee Benefit News now is accepting speaker proposals for its 2011 Benefits Forum & Expo, to be held Sept. 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. Get more information on how to get your session considered for next year’s program. Give us your A game, and we’ll give you a spot on the agenda in Big D.

Recent news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that by 2050 one in three Americans will have diabetes. As if that weren’t horrifying enough, nine out of 10 of the new cases will be linked to obesity.

Join me at the listening post for a special Daily Diversion podcast as Towers Watson senior consultant Alan Glickstein discusses the newest regulations regarding cash balance pension plans and what they rules mean for you.