Health and wellness

Employers are seeking help from benefit brokers and advisers as health care costs have them searching for alternatives to the current system of health care delivery.

Baird has a rich 95-year history of providing financial advice and services to its clients and being a best place to work for its associates, earning it ninth spot on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2014. It has been included in the magazine’s national rankings since 2004, which was right around the same time it started its first wellness program.

Benefit managers looking to get more training in wellness have a new option with an online program from the Institute for Wellness Education.

New estimates find the ACA will decrease the number of Americans obtaining health insurance coverage in the future. Can the employer-sponsored health care model survive under these conditions?

The IRS has issued guidance on how the IRS and the Treasury Department will administer the definition of a “covered entity” for purposes of the health insurance fee under the Affordable Care Act.

Employers say in 2015 they will continue to shift toward offering CDHPs, but many need adviser help to engage employees in better health care decisions and understand the benefits of a private exchange.

In an effort to raise money for Colorado’s state health insurance exchange, the board responsible for securing its financing has levied a new fee on all insurance policies issued in Colorado, including those sold off of the exchange.

Many consumers find health care websites tough to navigate and are not satisfied overall, indicating a need to improve the enrollment experience.

The IRS has issued its first adjustment to the ACA definition of “affordability” for the 2015 plan year. Building a solid ACA compliance plan with your employer clients means understanding the act clearly provides for such changes.

Amidst further rollout of the ACA’s provisions, researchers expect more employees to enroll in their employer-sponsored health plan for 2015 — a surge benefit advisers should be preparing employers to manage.

One of the most important issues on the mind of business owners is the Affordable Care Act and its employer shared responsibility provision. Paychex shares the top three ESR questions received from business owners and their responses.

Retiring baby boomers and health care reform law contribute to increased mergers and acquisitions activity.

Brokers and assisters will need to work closer together to help consumers during the 2015 ACA open enrollment, but most agree that will involve overcoming some underlying issues.

Vermont has cut ties with the vendor of their health insurance exchange, CGI, after continued complaints and errors with the online portal — a 'debacle' further exacerbated by the fact benefit brokers and advisers have mostly been left out of the loop.

The AMA’s designation of obesity as a disease promises to gain more medical coverage for treatment options, but could cost your employer clients in the short-term.

The IRS’ new draft forms for employer reporting on health care coverage unveils a glimpse of the administrative onus in store for benefit advisers and their employer clients working to comply with the Affordable Care Act.

While the logistics of health care growing increasingly complex, benefit advisers could and should play a crucial role in helping employers and employees understand the new health care delivery system.

Benefit advisers working with small to mid-size employers to boost benefit participation can focus on cost-saving measures and enrollment and education activities that larger companies are more inclined or able to invest in.

Technical glitches and data-management challenges have dominated HIX headlines at both the state and federal level, with the latest news showing how even the most widely regarded and most vilified state-run operations now share this common thread.

Benefit advisers hoping to stay ahead of the trend of employers transferring some of the burden of increased health care costs to their employees, should be prepared to discuss a variety of new and old cost-sharing strategies, as well as additional cost-saving tools.