Health and wellness

Advisers should focus on working with employers to utilize smart benefits technology to create individualized programs that appeal to every worker.

But when it comes to sharing the medical data collected by these technologies, they are keeping their employers at arm’s length.

Employer-sponsored health improvement programs must strive to include sleep as a key element of good health. Here are three strategies benefit managers can use to encourage better sleep habits among workers.

Employers are planning on making big changes to their benefits plans this year as they look to stay ACA compliant while still attracting and retaining talent.

Has the benefits industry made compliance more complicated than necessary?

Investing in community health leads to better workforce health, says Healthy Workplace Healthy Communities, a group launched to provide employers resources and tools to engage local leaders.

When employees come back to work after major health events like heart surgery, employers need to be aware of comorbid conditions such as depression or anxiety.

Quizzify makes learning about medical care fun and interesting, delivering information to employees in a fun, game-show contest format.

With medical inflation out pacing general inflation 7 to 1, advisers need to help their clients design benefit plans based on the actual health status of their employees.

The usage of telemedicine is growing, with almost two thirds of organizations offering or planning to offer such a service by 2018.

Excessive and expensive treatment is at the core of the healthcare cost crisis, says Brian Klepper.

The levy on high-cost plans is on the horizon and advisers need to prepare for it, says Davin Millholland.

Offering a plan that meets the minimum value standard and the federal poverty line safe harbor to everyone working 30 hours or more would eliminate the headaches associated with the employer mandate. So why aren’t more employers doing it?

How have employer-sponsored benefits changed since the last leap year? Long-term trends can give organizations a better understanding of whether they’re ahead (or behind) the benefits curve, says Compdata.

While just over half of companies with more than 1,000 employees offer at least one high deductible health plan, few have fully replaced traditional plans with the HDHP.

The company’s new platform is evidence that threats continue to emerge for brokers, but so do possibilities. Success depends on understanding the client’s needs.

Other countries and some innovative firms here consistently deliver equal or better quality care at dramatically lower cost, betraying the idea that conventional U.S. healthcare is superior or even appropriate.

The success of a client’s well-being program may be more about calculating value-on-investment rather than return-on-investment, according to a new report from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

As costs continue to grow, employers should focus on utilizing smart benefits technology to create individualized programs that appeal to every employee.

Despite being delayed until 2020, the Affordable Care Act’s so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost plans is still on the horizon and employers need to prepare for it.