Benefit plan design

Access to prescription drugs is more challenging for consumers buying insurance through the exchanges than those covered by employer-sponsored insurance plans, an analysis by Avalere Health finds.

With just days to go in open enrollment on the ACA’s public exchanges, brokers say the biggest problem is getting a hold of certain carriers, and one in particular rose to the top of the list of complaints.

Employers are making creative changes to employee benefit offerings to stem the tide of rising health care costs, but many are taking a wait-and-see approach to private exchanges, according to presenters at MetLife’s 10th National Benefits Symposium Monday.

Employers tend not to change their benefits programs quickly, and the Cadillac Tax is only three more open enrollments away. It might be tempting to wait, but those who evolve their plan designs now have more time to educate and engage their employees on these programs.

Investment committee, benefit committee, annual meetings … Do your clients know what their plan documents promise? Here’s why they should.

Opposing the ACA's contraceptive coverage rule, Hobby Lobby is asking the Supreme Court to give for-profit corporations the same religious freedoms as individuals, with potentially sweeping rights to opt out of laws they say are immoral.

Forty-five percent of employers have implemented or plan to consider using a private exchange for their full-time active employees before 2018, according to a new employer survey conducted by the Private Exchange Evaluation Collaborative

A snapshot of Obamacare enrollment in seven states suggests the law hasn’t significantly increased competition in health insurance markets, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported. Meanwhile, HHS said Monday enrollment has reached 5 million as the March 31 deadline is just two weeks away.

The number of employers contributing to health savings accounts or health reimbursement arrangements continues to grow, with 71% of employees reporting contributions from their employers in 2013, according to a new report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

New research from the Commonwealth Fund suggests that small business owners should consider the Small Business Health Options Program as a means to navigate the choppy waters in this post-Affordable Care Act world through competitive choice.

Private industry employers spent, on average, $29.63 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Wages and salaries averaged $20.76 per hour worked and accounted for 70.1% of that cost, while benefits averaged $8.87 and accounted for the remaining 29.9%.

Like it or not, limited plan options seem here to stay. Brokers and employers discuss their strategies for navigating through them.

Four of five U.S. companies have raised deductibles or are considering doing so as health costs increase, according to a Mercer survey of more than 700 employers.

Rising health care costs are driving employers to audit their covered dependents to eliminate working spouses.

About 4.2 million people signed up for Obamacare health plans through February as the administration tries to focus the attention of consumers on the March 31 deadline for Americans to enroll.

Benefits and risk management consulting firm Laurus Strategies launches a private exchange consulting practice to help employers identify vendors and determine the feasibility of moving to a private exchange.

The private and public exchanges offer employers an opportunity to help manage costs and provide personalized benefits, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution, industry experts say.

Looking toward the end of 2014 open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges, Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said Thursday at an AHIP conference that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expecting a “fairly significant spike in enrollments."

In two employer-focused sessions at AHIP’s annual policy conference in Washington this week, the excise tax in the ACA — known as the Cadillac tax — dominated the list of future concerns for plan sponsors.

A new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers finds consumers are a lot less focused on the price of their plan than insurance executives believe them to be.