Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Knowing a person’s annual salary tells you more about his health than you may realize. And unlike much other health-related data, salary information is readily available to employers and not considered “sensitive.”

If an employee at your company — regardless of whether you sell derivatives or donuts — thinks that true leadership is lacking and that sincere customer/client service isn’t its first priority, you’ve got big problems with culture and employee communication.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee agreed to pay the agency $1.5 million to settle a potential HIPAA violation — the first resulting from a breach under the HITECH Act’s breach notification rule. So, obviously you’ve heard about this a million times already on CNN and other news outlets, right? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Spending time and energy on wellness generally is cast as a long-term strategy with long term results. But not every group has long term health issues. And most groups would be better served by focusing on short-term problems.

According to research, HR professionals who rated college students’ employability based only on the students’ Facebook pages were able to draw fairly accurate conclusions about the students' future job performance.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that in 2009, people with long-term care coverage had a median total household spending of $47,392, compared to those without LTC insurance, who spent $32,048. In individual categories, the differences are particularly large in health, entertainment and other spending. Perhaps LTC buyers think, “Hey, I’ve done a good job saving/preparing for long-term care expenses; why not take that extra vacation?”

Now that I’m a more seasoned editor, I truly appreciate the infusion of energy, enthusiasm and fearlessness that new professionals bring to EBN. This appreciation hit me full-force yesterday, as I was on a call with EBN’s newest associate editor, Lisa Gillespie. Lisa was pitching me stories for EBN’s upcoming issue, and among her ideas was to write a piece on the fallout and future benefits implications of the health care reform mandate for…

Smoking is a well-known health hazard that kills 400,000 people every year across all genders, income levels and ethnic backgrounds. However, when it comes to quitting smoking, it turns out that not everyone benefits equally from quitting.

To me, it only seems fair that workers who already have guaranteed retirement income to look forward to through a pension plan not be able to reap more guaranteed money through a 401(k) match. I say that maintaining such a policy — aside from being wildly expensive and I’d think unsustainable — would be the ultimate gross-out double-dip.

I received a job announcement recently that I absolutely had to pass along (I’m happy to post others, by the way — just email me at kelley.butler@sourcemedia.com, subject line “Job announcement: Please post to EBV). I’m not sure who wrote it, but even I was tempted to apply.