Healthcare plans

Investing in community, dependent health leads to a more productive workforce, says advocacy group HWHC.

Advisers should prepare to work with companies who say they are considering major plan shifts this year to stay ACA compliant while still attracting and retaining talent.

Premium increases continue to motivate employers to consider cost-saving solutions they previously may have shunned, says Arthur J. Gallagher’s Paul Fetterolf.

How brokers can help businesses with heavy seasonality face unique benefit challenges.

Reviewing a plan provider’s SOC 1 report helps employers determine that the service organization has the necessary controls in place to track the benefit plan’s investments and transactions.

Employers are planning on making big changes to their benefits plans this year as they look to stay ACA compliant while still attracting and retaining talent.

Expert panel at EBA’s Workplace Benefits Renaissance event say clients are now receptive to telemedicine, self-funding and other solutions they previously dismissed.

Has the benefits industry made compliance more complicated than necessary?

Investing in community health leads to better workforce health, says Healthy Workplace Healthy Communities, a group launched to provide employers resources and tools to engage local leaders.

With medical inflation out pacing general inflation 7 to 1, advisers need to help their clients design benefit plans based on the actual health status of their employees.

The usage of telemedicine is growing, with almost two thirds of organizations offering or planning to offer such a service by 2018.

Excessive and expensive treatment is at the core of the healthcare cost crisis, says Brian Klepper.

The levy on high-cost plans is on the horizon and advisers need to prepare for it, says Davin Millholland.

Offering a plan that meets the minimum value standard and the federal poverty line safe harbor to everyone working 30 hours or more would eliminate the headaches associated with the employer mandate. So why aren’t more employers doing it?

How have employer-sponsored benefits changed since the last leap year? Long-term trends can give organizations a better understanding of whether they’re ahead (or behind) the benefits curve, says Compdata.

While just over half of companies with more than 1,000 employees offer at least one high deductible health plan, few have fully replaced traditional plans with the HDHP.

Many businesses with heavy seasonality face unique challenges when it comes to benefits enrollment. So how can those companies ensure a successful enrollment period for their ever-changing workforce?

Other countries and some innovative firms here consistently deliver equal or better quality care at dramatically lower cost, betraying the idea that conventional U.S. healthcare is superior or even appropriate.

Despite being delayed until 2020, the Affordable Care Act’s so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost plans is still on the horizon and employers need to prepare for it.

Voluntary benefits such as critical illness, hospital indemnity and accident insurance, are not regularly being offered alongside HDHPs.