Health and wellness

Understanding these ACA compliance requirements and the tools necessary to track the required data can be confusing and overwhelming.

Increasingly, employers are expanding wellness programs to include financial guidance. But do these programs go far enough?

Culture week concludes with a wrap-up of tips and suggestions from leading industry experts about what it takes to build a better workplace culture and the benefits that come with doing so.

Despite the looming Cadillac tax, few employers are planning big changes to their health plans this year.

As employers search for ways to trim health care costs, advisers are increasingly exploring the use of data to steer plan design.

Commentary: Waiting for the results of the 2016 presidential election before doing any Cadillac tax planning is not a good benefits strategy.

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.

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

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.

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.

Rising health care costs and concerns for employees’ financial wellness and retirement preparedness are nudging employers to re-evaluate their benefit offerings.

Commentary: Questions plan sponsors should be asking of their insurance carrier, payroll vendor and benefits technology provider in advance of the ACA’s information reporting requirements.

Although the Supreme Court upheld subsidies on the exchanges, there remain key aspects of the ACA that broker and employer lobbyist organizations continue to seek to amend and/or repeal.

Commentary: With the Supreme Court decision behind us, there are a series of critical concerns employers and their advisers must focus on now.

Commentary: The next case to watch, launched by Speaker John Boehner last November, could once again put public exchange assistance in jeopardy.

Eliminating subsidies ‘would destabilize the individual insurance market in any state with a federal exchange,’ Chief Roberts says.

Today, in a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled in King v. Burwell that subsidies used to purchase health insurance in the 36 states on the federally facilitated marketplace are legal, thus avoiding the “death spiral” so often referred to by Congress. What does this ruling mean for employers?

The time of “what-ifs” for employers ended Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding the challenge to state subsidies in King v. Burwell, and employers should maintain business as usual going forward, according to most industry observers.

The Supreme Court’s highly anticipated decision in King v. Burwell to uphold subsidies on the federal exchange removes uncertainty and shifts the focus of advisers and their clients back to ACA compliance.