Healthcare benefits

Commentary: There’s a lot for your clients to consider when carefully managing intermittent leaves. The Standard's Lincoln Dirks goes in-depth on the paperwork that outlines the parameters for an absence — certifications and recertifications.

Increasingly diverse workforces are creating a benefit communications challenge for employers and their advisers.

Commentary: Last month reminded blogger David C. Smith of the last 10 minutes of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. In the last four weeks, Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services settled their business in a concerted effort to make clear what would be permitted or prohibited when it came to compliance with the law.

Is it legal for employers to drop health care coverage and pay for employees to go to the exchanges? One industry expert says yes — if you use this payroll option.

Commentary: With the use of intermittent leave, a type of Family and Medical Leave Act job protection, on the rise, The Standard's Lincoln Dirks says this type of leave potentially may become a growing burden for your clients.

Some of the nation’s most foremost authorities on health economics and policy learned a painful – and ironic – lesson about their respective area of expertise recently when they were forced to pay more for their health care in 2015.

The majority of employers spent 16% or more of their total health care budgets on pharmacy benefits last year, up from 71% in 2013.

Plan sponsors need to know their definition of domestic partners, how to verify their status and how they apply the plan terms.

Eastbridge Consulting research finds brokers are the dominant distribution channel, but they must use their position wisely to curb dropping participation rates.

Back in November, the DOL issued FAQ Part 22, which directly addresses some recent efforts by employers to reimburse employees for participation in the exchange through Code Section 105, or through some type of other arrangement.

Employers collectively pay for more than one-third of all deliveries in the U.S., through employer-sponsored health insurance plans. According to new data, there are many opportunities for improvements that would save lives and money.

Employers have the ability to accumulate enormous amounts of information about a wide variety of subjects, and leveraging that data can be very powerful and impactful.

Employees are sitting too long, not using all their vacation, survey finds.

Technology has clearly revolutionized health care – from mobile apps that help employees stay fit and eat right to telemedicine that brings operational efficiency to treatment. But perhaps most compelling is the way it is helping elevate the open-enrollment experience in keeping with the intended consumer-friendly spirit of the Affordable Care Act.

Having more choices is a priority, but most workers are confident in their employer’s selection, study finds.

Agentreview.net launches this month, aiming to give consumers one location to find and critique local insurance agents.

Health plan providers may soon face the similar detailed fee disclosure requirements as retirement plan providers under the Department of Labor’s (DOL) 408(b)(2) regulations.

More and more employers are looking beyond curbing health care costs when measuring the success of health and wellness programs.

Specialty drugs are costly for plan sponsors and employees. Can value-based insurance design deliver better cost and clinical outcomes?

The Treasury Department says it will delay enforcement of an ACA prohibition relating to standalone health reimbursement arrangements until July 1.