Employee benefits

To stay abreast of private exchange trends, advisers, employers, insurers and other legal and industry experts will share their insights about private exchanges at this year’s EBA/EBN Private Healthcare Exchanges conference in downtown Chicago, July 23-24.

Employers are becoming more proactive in asking hospitals to participate in The Leapfrog Group’s surveys.

Commentary: Insurance is complex and relying on technology alone for employee education isn’t realistic.

It’s no surprise that health care costs are continuing to rise and while employers remain committed to providing benefits, many are re-evaluating their benefit strategies.

Pent-up demand for various medical services has been identified among newer public exchange enrollees who deferred or avoided treatment because of financial constraints resulting from a lack of health insurance, notes the first in a series of research papers on so called preference-sensitive services.

Advisers who excel in the vision field do the best job of making the connection between vision and medical plans, some experts say. Shannon Enders, a founding partner at Lakeshore Employee Benefits in Norton Shores, Mich., says when he brings the idea of connecting vision and health data to clients’ attention, “they quickly become very interested.”

Commentary: Delivering fee disclosure notices to both plan sponsors and plan participants has helped some plan sponsors to lower their costs, but the various fee disclosures are still difficult for many to understand. With such a national focus on fees, some plan sponsors have taken the opportunity to review and rethink how they handle plan fees.

Commentary: Columnist Nelson Griswold discusses why sophisticated employee benefit advisers are increasingly discussing self-funding of the health plan with mid-size employers.

Failure to identify all retirement plan fiduciaries is just one common mistake employers make that can lead to trouble.

Narrow-network restrictions help health insurance carriers participating in public exchanges limit their exposure to adverse selection and better manage the cost of patient care, but they’re also an annoyance for health care exchange enrollees who want unencumbered access to doctors and hospitals.

Commentary: Disruption is the word of the day in the evolving health insurance industry.

A healthy if not spectacular jobs report from the Department of Labor supports mid-market employer plans to bolster training programs to keep employees from jumping ship.

A group of lawmakers has introduced legislation to roll back guidance from the Treasury Department that prohibits employers from using stand-alone health reimbursement arrangements to reimburse employees for health care-related expenses.

There are more ways for defined contribution plan participants to gain access to professional investment management than by defaulting them into target-date funds or using a separately managed account.

Commentary: The ACA’s Cadillac tax is like a patient, powerful hurricane moving across the Atlantic. If it makes landfall, the impact will be dramatic.

Commentary: It’s natural to fear that fewer insurance companies will mean less choice in health plans and less differentiation and innovation. But there is good news.

Selecting the right partners, learning from colleagues and understanding the needs of each client will help agents who are new to this space.

Retirement assets in the U.S. jumped to nearly $25 trillion in the first quarter of 2015, a 1.3% jump from $24.6 trillion at the end of the year.

Consolidation in the health insurance industry holds both positives and negatives for employer-sponsored health plans, but employers shouldn’t expect to see any major savings resulting from the Aetna-Humana merger until at least 2017, say industry experts.

Aetna’s purchase of Humana confirms analyst predictions of continued consolidation as carriers vie for market share, a trend industry experts fear will limit choice and force brokers to reinvent their business approach.