In this post-health care reform environment, benefit advisers - and their employer clients - face a new world order. For instance, with new restrictions on capping lifetime maximum benefits, the burden of managing the potential financial risk posed by even one employee's catastrophic illness looms large.

Cigna Corp is expanding its business that provides health coverage to those working abroad by offering a product directly to individuals.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals study evaluates performance in 10 areas: mortality; medical complications; patient safety; average patient stay; expenses; profitability; patient satisfaction; adherence to clinical standards of care; post-discharge mortality; and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure, and pneumonia.

Consumers are spending $363 billion a year on ancillary health care, according to a new study by Deloitte.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a group of large pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued by a California county for allegedly overcharging for prescription drugs in violation of federal law.

Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider and publisher of the widely followed Standard & Poor's Index Versus Active Fund scorecard series, has launched the industry's first comprehensive, periodic scorecard for target-date mutual funds. The S&P Indices Target-Date Scorecard provides performance comparisons, equal- and asset-weighted peer averages, and volatility comparisons for U.S. target-date funds versus their relative S&P Target-Date Index.

New research from MetLife spotlights a disconnect between the perceptions of voluntary benefits held by employers and employees.

Insurance companies and investment firms offering retirement services to companies large and small are learning that attention to detail and improved communication with the plan sponsors and, indirectly, plan participants can dramatically improve their customer retention and satisfaction rates.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s retirement services unit is generating significant new business, much of it from existing clients of the bank.

Contributions from employers to workers’ account-based health plans have dropped for the last two years, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports.

Most health systems adopting an accountable care organization model will lose money during the first three years, according to a report published March 24 on the New England Journal of Medicine website.

An analysis of 43,600 patient accounts at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System with balances greater than $50 at discharge shows that when a family's spending on health care exceeds 3.5% of income, a tipping point is reached on the ability to pay.

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based investor consultant Spectrem Group.

Customers are actually spending far more on their own health care costs than the government traditionally reports.

An analysis of Fidelity’s 74,000 HSA accounts has revealed several interesting trends regarding contribution rates and spending behavior.

With regulatory reform bringing a wave of changes to defined contribution plans, retirement plan advisers need to be even more conversant in the ins and outs of legislative requirements and other complexities. Which is why BlackRock is beefing up its commitment to advisers who work with these retirement plans.

March Madness means some workers are paying more attention to their bracket results than responding to workplace e-mails. Two new surveys show how the NCAA basketball tournament may be affecting your workplace.

The most persuasive health information won't always serve your best interests, U.S. doctors report.

California's insurance regulator has thrown its weight behind a lawsuit accusing Bristol Myers Squibb Co of dishing out kickbacks to doctors who prescribe its drugs.

A sluggish economy hasn’t slowed the nation’s health care consumerism movement, according to a recent analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.