Health and wellness

Voluntary benefit sales are enjoying rapid growth as employers prepare for the impact of the Affordable Care Act by revamping their medical plan designs to include more products such as accident and critical illness benefits.

Commentary: Help time-crunched employers make the right decision.

Two months before health insurers must submit rate proposals for 2015 to government regulators, WellPoint Inc. fired a surprising shot across their bow by predicting it may ask for “double-digit plus” increases.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday debated whether companies can assert religious rights, hearing arguments in an ideological clash over the Affordable Care Act and rules that promote contraceptive coverage.

A community with high well-being is one where citizens and employees are satisfied with their lifestyle and overall health. In this year’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, top honors go to Provo-Orem, Utah.

Access to prescription drugs is more challenging for consumers buying insurance through the exchanges than those covered by employer-sponsored insurance plans, an analysis by Avalere Health finds.

With more employers moving to consumer-driven health care plans and shifting more responsibility for health care and health risks on to workers, are wellness programs still relevant? Health leaders from IBM and Johnson & Johnson addressed that very question during the Institute for Health & Productivity Management’s annual global conference held in Orlando.

Obamacare opponents will argue Tuesday, to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, that millions of otherwise qualified people in the 36 states that haven’t set up marketplaces are ineligible to receive the subsidies.

State-run exchange flaws have sparked talk of extending the open enrollment deadline beyond March 31 in states where residents could not complete applications through their respective online marketplaces.

With just days to go in open enrollment on the ACA’s public exchanges, brokers say the biggest problem is getting a hold of certain carriers, and one in particular rose to the top of the list of complaints.

Employers are making creative changes to employee benefit offerings to stem the tide of rising health care costs, but many are taking a wait-and-see approach to private exchanges, according to presenters at MetLife’s 10th National Benefits Symposium Monday.

Months after becoming the first state to offer health care coverage to lower-income residents through a “private option” rather than Medicaid expansion under the ACA, Arkansas finally agreed to extend this closely watched political compromise.

Employees in organizations with strong cultures of health spend more time working, work more carefully and concentrate better than employees at other organizations, according to research by the Integrated Benefits Institute.

Republican leaders on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are challenging the Treasury Department’s authority to delay the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, calling it a political move directed by President Obama ahead of the November elections.

Nearly four years after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act more than half (53%) of Americans disapprove of the law — but most of those opponents now say they want politicians to make the law work, according to a new Pew Research Center study.

WellPoint Inc., the second-largest for-profit health insurer in the U.S., raised its earnings forecast for the year as the company adds customers through the exchanges set up under Obamacare.

One in every five Affordable Care Act applicants in Wisconsin has not yet paid their premium, according to Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute. The news comes on the heels of a Republican effort to uncover how many of the 5 million ACA enrollees across the country have paid their first premium.

Opposing the ACA's contraceptive coverage rule, Hobby Lobby is asking the Supreme Court to give for-profit corporations the same religious freedoms as individuals, with potentially sweeping rights to opt out of laws they say are immoral.

Technology company Cerner lowers its health care costs through personalized mobile messaging.

At any given time in the United States, an estimated 1 in 10 adults report symptoms that would qualify for a depression diagnosis. For benefits professionals, navigating employee mental health can be tricky. Not all symptoms are noticeable, but a few hidden indicators can hinder overall productivity.