Healthcare plans

The decision by CMS leaves just eight days for insurers to send bills to those signing up on the last day of the enrollment period.

Consulting firm Towers Watson announced today it has bought private health care exchange provider Liazon, which operates the Bright Choices exchange, for $215 million. The deal further validates the private exchange market, says one of Liazon's competitors.

The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance grew at only 2.1% in 2013, Mercer says, but companies expect levels to jump next year, back to around 5.2%

Social networks kept the 41,000 participants in the Sprint Get Fit Challenge engaged and motivated throughout the 12-week challenge. Collectively, participants (who made up 35% of the telecom company’s population) lost more than 41,000 pounds, took almost 4.8 billion steps, and logged nearly 22 million exercise minutes. By building excitement and supportive competition through social media, Sprint’s wellness leaders engaged participants over the long-term.

A public employer in California is building its own marketplace to mirror public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act — a potential idea for brokers for prospecting.

Used to assess and evaluate changes in employee health, biometric health screenings are a crucial component of a comprehensive worksite health program. As a result, biometric health screenings are increasing in popularity and are being implemented by more and more employers.

Flexible spending account advocates expect most employers to embrace rollover provision.

What the lessons of retail marketing can teach benefit professionals about selling and engaging employees in benefit decisions, resulting in more buy-in on health exchanges.

America’s Health Insurance Plans issues a statement about President Obama's remarks today on the Affordable Care Act.

The number of people who died in hospitals as a result of medical mistakes is approaching half a million, according to Patient Safety America. Medical mistakes not only cost lives and misery but billions of dollars in extra costs, most of which is paid by employers.

For HR professionals, mid-year nondiscrimination testing needs to be at the top of that list. Waiting to test until the completion of the year can have severe negative consequences.

We’re living in the age of big data, so why has so little changed in how we make our health insurance decisions, asks Liazon co-founder Alan Cohen. The private exchange entrepreneur makes the case why benefits should meet technology.

The new rules, which come five years after the Mental Health Parity act was passed, mean insurers won’t be able to charge higher co-payments or deductibles for mental illness or limit the duration of care.

Even if their employees don't use the exchanges, their functioning depends pretty heavily on some critical interactions among exchanges, employers, and their employees.

Congress has introduced bills to reverse an Obamacare change on how Flexible Savings Accounts can be spent. Meanwhile, will the new rollover change impact HSA account holders as well?

The Affordable Care Act and the troubled launch of the federal insurance exchange have bolstered the business case for data sharing and consumer engagement, according to eHealth Initiative's latest survey of health information exchange systems.

Leaving on a jet plane for health care abroad? Medical tourism is a booming industry, but employers need to be aware of the potential risks to ensure the safety of their employees and avoid fraud.

The Affordable Care Act did not envision the emergence of private exchanges, noted Larry Boress, president and CEO of the Midwest Business Group on Health. “There are no rules or regulations – yet,” he warned.

Up to $500 in a Flexible Spending Account can now roll over from year to year, but making the switch for 2013 could mean employees planning on using the grace period will lose money.

As the Obama administration works to fix the technological problems associated with Healthcare.gov, greater issues with the federal health care exchanges remain, said a panel of health care experts Thursday in Washington.