Health and wellness

With unmanaged employee absences costing companies up to 10% of payroll, according to some estimates, employers should pay close attention to the reasons behind absenteeism and whether they are linked to the organization’s culture of health, or lack thereof.

A program for sick Americans who were previously denied insurance coverage has been further extended, with individuals now given until the end of June to purchase coverage.

Oregon’s health insurance exchange, plagued by computer flaws after federal taxpayers spent $303 million to build it, may be closed and the state’s customers shifted to the U.S. Obamacare marketplace.

Benefit advisers should be familiar with certain grace periods when employers can avoid penalties.

Topping the recent California rate of 39%, brokers on this state-run exchange completed more than 36,000 of the private health plan enrollments. Their record with SHOP enrollments, however, was a different story.

Wearable fitness devices may be gaining ground but at least one benefits professional expresses doubts about their viability in workplace wellness programs.

IRS issues annual health spending account contribution limits and out-of-pocket maximums.

Only a little over half of small businesses understand and are prepared for the changes required by the Affordable Care Act, according to a new survey.

Commentary: Blogger Andy Torelli says after the first ACA enrollment, we’re still years away from knowing the true efficacy of the law. What can advisers learn from this limbo period?

Industry musings about how fast this employee benefit selection tool will grow and in what format are plentiful.

When the public exchanges were first envisioned, some industry analysts thought most employers eventually would head for the exits on financing health benefits and simply steer their employees into the nascent online marketplace. That hasn’t happened, of course, and it’s far too early in the HIX rollout to expect any meaningful change to occur.

While no public exchange was without troubles during the first ACA open-enrollment period, one state in particular put unique efforts into its SHOP component and saw results.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is in the early stages of looking at new vendors to potentially take over operation of Healthcare.gov, when Accenture’s contract expires in January 2015.

Employees are craving voluntary benefits to offset high deductible plans, yet many say they haven’t been offered any new options since the ACA became law.

As Covered California announces the rate at which agents enrolled consumers on the state-run public exchange, two different realities are emerging from agents throughout the most populous U.S. state.

Nearly half of newly insured Americans signed up for coverage off the ACA’s public marketplaces and benefit advisers have several theories as to why.

Brokers may be the best intermediary to communicate a matter of pediatric dental compliance to employers and medical carriers operating in numerous states as regulations shift.

Consumer spending climbed by $20.4 billion at an annualized rate adjusted for inflation in February, and $13 billion of the increase came from outlays on health services spurred by the ACA, according to Commerce Department data.

People who waited until the last minute to sign up for Obamacare were significantly younger than those first in line, as the percentage of enrollees younger than 35 jumped in the last month. President Obama said Thursday that 8 million people have enrolled in private insurance plans through the public exchanges.

With open enrollment officially over, suggestions are emerging from industry experts on how to tweak the next round of ACA sign-ups.