Healthcare plans

Healthcare coverage is a significant piece of your employees’ overall financial package. If your plan doesn’t appropriately meet their needs, it can be a source of stress for them throughout the year.

Commentary: An employer’s argument that their classification of a 1099 employee should be respected because it’s how the employee is classified will go over like a lead balloon. The risk of misclassification under the ACA could be significant, says lawyer Peter Marathas.

Commentary: Adviser David C. Smith says he’s seen “a handful of imaginative approaches that all fail to satisfy the IRS’s prohibition” on standalone Health Reimbursement Arrangements.

Commentary: To ensure employees receive safe and necessary healthcare and maintain ethical practice, smart healthcare HR department leaders will want to keep their antenna up for any whisper or whiff of providers routinely waiving copays, coinsurance and deductibles for their patients.

Bring many of the industry’ leading minds together with brokers and advisers from across the country who are eager to learn and share insights on the latest market trends and best practices, and you’ve got some of the year’s most thought-provoking conversations. For those who missed out, here are the highlights from EBA’s 2015 conferences.

Commentary: With so many moving parts and delays, it’s been understandingly difficult for employers to figure out exactly what their responsibilities are when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. But when it comes to healthcare reform, what you don’t know really can hurt you.

Commentary: For the employer, the need to retain employees is strong and absorbing additional cost in the benefit plan will have strong short-term consideration.

Commentary: Even the best hospitals are not immune to medical mistakes. However, there are steps employers can take to educate themselves about its costs.

Commentary: The rapidly evolving regulatory environment has increased benefit and tax complexities for most employees, making the open enrollment decisions more confusing and stressful than ever.

Commentary: Rookie adviser Brian Murphy makes the connection between carriers’ package proposals and the opportunity to market multiple lines of coverage to the client.

MassMutual develops an integrated benefits exchange combining retirement savings, healthcare and virtually all other kinds of benefits in a unified, cloud-based system.

Commentary: We would all be better off if we stopped debating the merits of employee wellness and focus on what the intent of it should be – helping employees and their families achieve their optimal health.

Brokers have been largely an afterthought on the public health care exchanges, industry insiders say, and one company says it is trying to change that at no cost to the broker.

Commentary: Most employers are in the dark about what they get in return for what they spend on health benefits. As a result, they tend to make decisions about benefits on the basis of costs alone, with little regard to value.

Employee education is critical to health care cost management, says United Benefit Advisors’ Les McPhearson, who addresses rising plan costs in the company’s annual health plan survey.

Flu season is just around the corner and you’ve probably set up free flu shots for everyone in the office. But are you also offering financial wellness programs to shore up your employees’ immunity against financial stress?

Commentary: When gas prices rise at the pump, consumers change their driving habits. They ride more strategically, putting off unnecessary outings and carefully planning out trips. Yet when health care prices rise and Americans must dig deeper into their own pockets, they put their own health at risk instead of becoming savvier consumers. …

Commentary: Without building a better plan, continued participation will wane and the program as a whole will fall short of employer health initiatives, says adviser Tim Olson, who shares five steps that will lead employer clients to an improved plan.

The benefits industry is awaiting several rulings from the Supreme Court of the United States expected in 2016 that could have far-reaching effects on the administration and cost of operating employee benefit plans.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in Montanile v. Board of Trustees of the National Elevator Industry Health Benefit Plan and will determine if, under ERISA, a reimbursement to an employee benefit plan can be recovered if the beneficiary has already spent the funds he or she recovered from a third party.