Healthcare plans

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.

With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, strategic planning for benefit plans has taken on a new level of importance. Yet very few employers have a strategic plan in place for benefits, said Bill Hembree, CEO, Health Research Institute during this week’s Benefits Forum & Expo in Boca Raton, Fla.

Her breadth and depth of experience make Theresa White a good choice to be Aflac's first female and African-American president of Aflac U.S., say industry experts.

Health care reform has presented employers plenty of new challenges to grapple with when it comes to offering health care coverage, and, many say, has expanded the critical role of benefit advisers who heed the call.

Communication will be a critical component of benefits administration in the future, according to Aflac’s Teresa White, who outlines benefit and HR trends for the upcoming year.

A focus on retirement has been key recently, with a push for younger generations to begin investing into 401(k)s, along with recent calls to Congress to empower savings among employees. Employee Benefit News has remained on top of the coverage and has packaged it for you here.

A new self-service tool for employers and brokers aims to make the RFP process for pharmacy benefit plans a little easier.

As more and more companies are flooded with administrative duties due to the Affordable Care Act, cloud-based HR and benefits systems such as Zenefits are starting to gain a substantial hold in the employer market.

Premiums for health plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act’s Small Business Health Options Program exchanges were slightly cheaper than plans only offered elsewhere, a recent study found, but advisers say the study misses the big picture.

The Employer Measures of Productivity, Absence and Quality program, originally launched in 2001, is getting a new life after a two-year pause thanks to the National Business Group on Health’s partnership with Truven Health Analytics.

The American Benefits Council has introduced its strategic plans for health and retirement policy, providing 46 specific regulatory recommendations for Congress to consider in easing the burdens on employees, employers and government agencies.

Commentary: Despite perceived cost savings, most narrow networks have actually missed the opportunity to improve value — and their lack of transparency threatens to unleash a ferocious consumer backlash, says Dartmouth's Scott Wallace.

Many employers are "taking necessary steps to rein in costs," the National Business Group on Health says, but a new Mercer survey shows plenty remain on auto-pilot.

Employers are making changes to reshape their health benefit plans between now and 2017 in order to reduce costs, according to Towers Watson’s 2014 Health Care Changes Ahead Survey. In particular, employers pointed to three specific factors that will help frame employer-sponsored benefits.

  Walgreen Co.’s director of health, benefits and wellbeing knew his company, like most in the U.S., was on an unsustainable path of increasing health care costs combined with employees who didn’t focus on their wellbeing. But when the company’s senior directors started thinking about moving employee health care offerings to a private exchange, he was adamantly against it. …