Healthcare plans

Several factors, including the economy and technological advances, are contributing to a slowdown in the health care cost growth rate in the U.S., studies show.

As the gap widens on whether e-cigarettes are part of the solution or still part of the greater problem of employee smoking cessation, their popularity is still on the rise. Experts from the health management group HealthFitness have provided some additional tips for employers taking on the challenge of creating e-cigarette policies in the workplace.

EBN’s annual i-COMM Awards recognize the best in internal communication of benefits, and are awarded in four categories: Best Overall Communications Campaign, Best Print or Online Employee Newsletter, Best Employee Intranet or Portal and Best Use of Social Media. In this four-part series, we highlight this year’s winners, starting with AECOM, i-COMM winner for Best Overall Communications Campaign.

Diana Andersen’s efforts to educate employees made the Affordable Care Act a ‘nonevent’ for Zions Bancorporation. Andersen is EBN’s 2014 Benny Award winner for Benefits Leadership in Health Care.

Commentary: Under the ACA, clinical trials offer an expanding frontier for plan sponsors and insurers, says Symetra’s Marien Diaz.

The IRS has released long-awaited draft instructions for the forms employers will use to comply with the ACA’s employer mandate, giving benefit advisers and their clients a glimpse of the work ahead for 2015 and how to begin preparing now.

Court rules verbal COBRA notice is sufficient, but benefit advisers caution employers to follow-up with written notice, as well.

CVS Caremark Corp. halted sales of tobacco products almost a month ahead of schedule, started a smoking-cessation campaign, and changed its name to position itself as an advocate of better health.

On the 40th anniversary of ERISA, benefits attorney Howard Shapiro contemplates the differences between this landmark piece of legislation and another, the Affordable Care Act.

The IRS has posted draft instructions for the various Affordable Care Act reporting that will be done for calendar year 2015 and while the instructions provide much needed guidance for employers and insurers, they also confirm the daunting complexity of the reporting task.

Insurance underwriting is hardly dramatic enough to warrant a TV show, but there is a forensic component to the annual renewal process.

In what could serve as a caution to employers using health and fitness apps to engage workers in their wellness programs, researchers at Brigham Young University are warning over the trend of developers basing their platforms' rewards on gamification.

Survey finds that across all lines of insurance, 18 to 29 year olds are less likely to own coverage than other age groups.

Commentary: Financial services company BOK Financial enlists the help of a benefits communication vendor to boost participation in its consumer-directed health plan.

With increased CFO involvement in health care and benefit decision-making, benefit managers are under more scrutiny than ever before to ensure they efficiently manage their health and benefits vendor relationships.

Millennials are 10% more likely to lack health coverage than adults age 30 and over despite paying lower costs, receiving subsidies based on income and possibly staying on their parent's health insurance policy until age 26.

Large employers say they don’t have plans to eliminate health care coverage for active employees in 2015, although 35% say they are considering moving their active employees to a private exchange in 2016 or beyond, a recent survey finds.

The Obama administration has announced a government workaround to allow employees of religious nonprofits access to birth-control coverage even if their employer has opted not to pay for such medicines.

In anticipation of the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax, U.S. employers are planning to take more aggressive approaches to projected single-digit increases in health care costs by revisiting the viability of consumer-driven health plans and spousal and dependent coverage.

Benefit advisers and employers say a host of challenges is not only to blame for stagnant SHOP enrollment, but must be overcome if SHOP is to enjoy any success.