Healthcare plans

Some have compared the changes in health care to the changes that occurred in the retirement industry 30 years ago when companies switched from pension plans to 401(k) plans and put the responsibility on consumers to pick investments. But George Tzinas, chief experience officer at BenefitAlign, says it is not the same.

Separating fact from fiction when it comes to the Affordable Care Act is no easy task. Here are 13 common misconceptions about the law.

Commentary: Specific innovations in benefits administration software are paving the way and supplying the technological framework to a future primarily based in cyberspace rather than buildings filled with people.

Yelp, the online service which provides customer reviews of local businesses, has teamed with the ProPublica news organization to incorporate health care statistics and consumer opinion survey data onto Yelp’s business pages for more than 25,000 medical treatment facilities.

Trying to institute a wellness initiative in a poor corporate culture is like making dinner with rotten ingredients.

Despite some progress in making employees smarter consumers of health care, pockets of resistance remain, sometimes in surprising places.

Public exchange plan participants spent less money on medications in the first quarter of 2015 than the first quarter of 2014 amid changes in the demographic mix of enrollees, according to newly released data from Express Scripts Holding Company.

Large employers are playing a waiting game in the coming year on health care cost saving strategies as many wait and see how Washington politics play out.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has awarded consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton a $202 million contract to be the marketplace system integrator, or general contractor, which includes the federally-facilitated health insurance marketplace, parts of the state-run marketplaces and more.

Brokers continue to be a vital resource for individuals enrolling in health care coverage on the marketplaces setup under the ACA, with some brokers saying in 2015 they helped more than 100 individuals enroll in health care coverage on the marketplaces.

The business response to the ACA, coupled with the growing health care consumerism movement, is rapidly changing the relationship between employer and employee.

Working in partnership with USI and GoHealth, the payroll firm’s platform will serve populations with employer-provided benefits as well as those who must purchase through public exchanges.

HSAs are growing in popularity as a health benefit offering and experts say they could save employers a lot in health care costs. But employees still need expert advice to understand how and when to use HSAs and how to maximize their full potential.

With the cost of pharmaceuticals consuming an ever-increasing proportion of health benefit expenditures, many employers are responding by adding pricing tiers to their drug plan designs.

Commentary: Who would argue that spending $10,000 is worth the trade-off of cardiac surgery? Or $90,000 for drugs which might avoid a costly liver failure incident? A lot of employers, that’s who.

Three Republican senators have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concern for the “lack of oversight for more than $1 billion in federal grants” given to state-based marketplaces.

Commentary: The health care cost crisis needs to be addressed now. Enter applied predictive analytics.

The IRS continues to seek industry input on the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans.

Offering benefits and health programs is one thing, but ensuring your employees are using the right benefits at the right time is another.

As employers look to curb rising health care costs, new research connects on-site health care clinic usage and claims costs, with some surprising savings results.