Benefit plan design

Several tech companies this week announced they would be adding egg freezing benefits to their health plan. While that may sound like a nice perk to some, making this and other benefit plan changes comes with risks that your employer clients, with your help, should consider.

The new CEO of the federal health insurance marketplace, Kevin Counihan, knows there is room for improvement, but says new processes have Healthcare.gov ready for 2015 open enrollment.

A fix is in the works to ensure agents and brokers can identify themselves and therefore receive commissions for their work on the federally-facilitated marketplace, an agency official at The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight said Tuesday.

Earlier this week, Walmart announced it was dropping health care coverage for employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, a move the company estimates will affect about 2% of its workforce. Here’s a wrap-up of our analysis, plus a look at the ways other large companies are handling rising health care costs.

Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesperson, tells EBN that the company's decision to end health coverage for a small portion of its workforce will enable these employees to "decide for themselves what makes the most sense for them."

Walmart’s announcement this week that it will drop health care coverage for its part-time employees reiterates that employer-sponsored health care coverage is changing, and those benefit advisers who plan to remain relevant to clients must change, too.

Walmart Stores Inc. the world’s biggest retail chain, plans to stop offering health benefits to employees who work less than 30 hours a week, a move that will affect about 2% of its U.S. staff.

Can a cafeteria plan prevent an employee from heading to the exchange? New IRS direction clarifies mid-year changes for your client’s cafeteria plan participants.

With the ACA’s employer mandate on the horizon, many employers with part-time and variable hour employees are also re-evaluating their benefit offerings for part-time employees.

Health care reform has presented employers plenty of new challenges to grapple with when it comes to offering health care coverage, and, many say, has expanded the critical role of benefit advisers who heed the call.

Commentary: Health insurance companies, health care professionals, politicians, academics and public health advocates all have opinions about what health care reform in America should look like.

As more and more companies are flooded with administrative duties due to the Affordable Care Act, cloud-based HR and benefits systems such as Zenefits are starting to gain a substantial hold in the employer market.

Premiums for health plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act’s Small Business Health Options Program exchanges were slightly cheaper than plans only offered elsewhere, a recent study found, but advisers say the study misses the big picture.

Employers are making changes to reshape their health benefit plans between now and 2017 in order to reduce costs, according to Towers Watson’s 2014 Health Care Changes Ahead Survey. In particular, employers pointed to three specific factors that will help frame employer-sponsored benefits.

Adviser help is needed to encourage employers to adopt the FSA rollover allowance, which has demonstrated growth results for employee contributions and enrollment numbers.

Predictions for 2014 open enrollment include more than 3 million employees being covered under private exchanges. Is this the new trend in employer-sponsored health care coverage?

A new analysis estimates even more employers will move active employees to private exchanges in part because brokers are taking on a bigger role in pushing them as a solution to rising health care costs.

Two major trends in employer-sponsored health care continue: a slower rate of premium increases and greater use of high-deductible health plans, especially among small employers, Kaiser study finds.

CMS says small employers and their benefit advisers in select states will have early access to the ACA’s Small Business Health Options Program to test-drive the system, but not all are interested.

The IRS has released long-awaited draft instructions for the forms employers will use to comply with the ACA’s employer mandate, giving benefit advisers and their clients a glimpse of the work ahead for 2015 and how to begin preparing now.