Healthcare plans

Several tech companies this week announced they would be adding egg freezing benefits to their health plan. While that may sound like a nice perk to some, making this and other benefit plan changes comes with risks that your employer clients, with your help, should consider.

On the heels of news about Aon Hewitt’s estimated more than 1.2 million HIX enrollees exceeding its expectations for 2015, Bright Choices Exchange operator Liazon is crowing about its own expansion plans.

A fix is in the works to ensure agents and brokers can identify themselves and therefore receive commissions for their work on the federally-facilitated marketplace, an agency official at The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight said Tuesday.

Initial numbers for 2015 open enrollment put participation in Mercer’s Marketplace exchange at nearly five times the size of 2014 rates. The consulting firm also added 40 additional clients to the exchange who were not previously with Mercer.

A new broker-friendly private exchange is launching that will allow employees at companies with less than 50 lives to buy health insurance using pre-tax dollars.

The number of employees with long-term disability plans has dropped and employees paying more for coverage, despite the fact that that 1 in 8 will need it during their career.

At Alliance Resource Partners, 4% of the workforce is responsible for roughly 45% of the company's annual health care spend. The coal mining company is implementing new initiatives to better reach workers at remote mine sites.

Commentary: Have you heard of Medicare observation status? Columnist Craig J. Davidson says it is creating a payment nightmare for older plan participants with Medicare Part A as the primary payer. Educate your groups with Medicare beneficiaries, Davidson says, because the rule has real consequences.

Wearable wellness is here to stay, yet precisely how the devices will affect employer programs remains to be seen.

Aon Hewitt expects more than 1.2 million employees, retirees and their families to choose health benefits through the company’s exchanges — revising their earlier estimates upward.

EBA’s annual Workplace Benefits Summit, held last week in Boca Raton, Fla., included a celebration of our Advisers of the Year, strategy and marketing tips from benefit professionals, and the presentation of our inaugural Most Influential Women in Benefit Advising awards.

Walmart Stores Inc.’s move to eliminate health insurance for about 30,000 part-time workers underscores the mixed benefits of Obamacare for companies and their employees.

Encouraging the use of video game-styled features on smartphones to boost participation in your wellness program might get employees off to a good start, but these tools might not be the best long-term solution to building engagement.

Walmart Stores Inc. the world’s biggest retail chain, plans to stop offering health benefits to employees who work less than 30 hours a week, a move that will affect about 2% of its U.S. staff.

Employers and employees have different perspectives when it comes to discussing benefits, and benefit advisers can help close that gap.

Narrow networks of health care providers offer new ways for employers and health plans to control the costs of care. But many of these networks are being constructed without regard to the value they deliver, says Scott Wallace, visiting professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.

Health care reform has changed the role of the adviser from insurance broker to that of a trusted adviser, counselor and compliance guru. Advisers hoping to thrive in this new environment will embrace the change less as a burden and more as an opportunity.

Global information and measurement company Nielsen reveals how implementing a measured communication approach – both on the ground and in the cloud – during open enrollment worked wonders for the company’s internal employee ratings.

Pick the wrong technology provider, and you’ll be fighting fires and frustrating employees every day, no matter how Amazon-like the shopping experience is for the end user.

With the ACA’s employer mandate on the horizon, many employers with part-time and variable hour employees are also re-evaluating their benefit offerings for part-time employees.