Health and wellness

With lack of information and resources deterring most of the uninsured who did not enroll for coverage on the exchanges in 2014, advisers are poised to play a pivotal role in 2015.

Workplace stress is a worldwide issue, with new data indicating stressed-out employees are a contributing factor to the global rise in health care costs.

After a backlash from the broker and agent community, final rules on this topic show some changes from the government agency.

Variable hour and other part-time employee determinations are tough. Here’s how to advise your employer clients on what to do and what not to do.

After the exchange board moved this week to switch their state-run marketplace to the Feds’ model, brokers were cautiously optimistic about the next step because the last open enrollment experience was a “nightmare” and “fiasco.”

In follow-up to two broker-friendly bills introduced in late March, a group of five U.S. Democratic senators are asking the agency again for changes that will help ACA-certified agents better enroll consumers.

While certain health and wellness campaigns lend themselves to gender-specific messaging – mammograms or prostate cancer, for example – positioning health and benefits communication to male and female employees differently isn’t commonplace.

Even though more than one-in-four Americans have received treatment or therapy from a mental health professional, few people know that health insurers are required to provide coverage for mental health, behavioral health and substance-use disorders that is comparable to coverage for physical health.

Mirroring a recent HHS initiative, some state-run marketplaces such as Covered California have extended a special enrollment period for COBRA-eligible individuals, allowing them to enroll in a marketplace exchange plan through July.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry is sounding the alarm that many children aren’t getting the dental care they need — even though the ACA includes pediatric dental care on its essential health benefits roster for small-group plans.

Individuals could pay more than twice as much for prescription drugs with certain exchange plans, as employers that provide health coverage gain another asset to leverage.

Increasingly, organizations are recognizing that employees don’t leave their financial, child/elder care-giving responsibilities and other worries at home, and are beginning to look at wellness in a broader, more holistic way.

Den Bishop had a vision for a new wellness solution, one that focused on the true cost enemy — disease. That vision became ACAP Health.

Washington, Virginia and Indiana have new carriers signed on for next year, evidence that competition is growing stiffer in the government-run marketplaces.

As the HHS adds more opportunities for consumers to obtain health coverage outside of open enrollment, the broker and agent association says it’s not enough.

Everyone understands that advertising helps sell products and that was the top way to sell health plans through the public exchanges. But looking back on the first open enrollment, which advertising techniques worked and what lessons were learned to raise the number of enrollees further for 2015?

The breakdown of states running their own health insurance exchanges versus those using the federally facilitated marketplace will change in due time – but exactly how it will change is still up in the air, said a speaker at Wednesday’s National Health Insurance Exchange Summit, held in Washington, D.C.

High first quarter profitability means benefit agents and brokers could see a record-breaking year in 2014, including bigger bonuses from carriers.

What are some of the common factors – all much welcomed signs of improved workplace wellness – that are common to America’s healthiest companies? A marked reduction in smoking, plus measurable reductions in glucose and blood pressure levels emerge as the most consistent hallmarks of a truly healthy workplace.

Commentary: Blogger Jeff Hyman says creating this culture is challenging but he has suggestions you can bring to your clients, or your own work environment.