Healthcare plans

With up to $500 now able to roll over from year to year, will employees flock to Flexible Spending Accounts? Benefits administrators should plan on it.

Most health plan cancellation notices are being delivered to individuals who had coverage that is now out of line with the Affordable Care Act. But some the changes are also affecting small employers who must decide whether to pay the higher costs for new coverage, or send workers to purchasing exchanges.

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

A good communications strategy can help your clients get the most from their benefits investment.

More than 300,000 people have visited Kentucky’s health-care exchange website, and more than 26,000 people have signed up for plans, with 10,000 more “in the process of choosing,” Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said.

Keller Williams moves to private exchange, Mercer adds new HIX clients

Guardian launches stop-loss insurance product.

Employers overlook wellness best practices, according to bswift research.

Company uses Teladoc and saves an estimated $200,000.

The allure of lower premiums and higher consumer engagement is powerful, but it may not work in the end.

A growing range of cost transparency tools are attempting to help employees make better health care decisions.

“All that we are doing with health care impacts so much more than health care costs, health risk status and use of health care services – it impacts the business,” explained Bruce Sherman, MD, medical director of Employers Health Coalition.

After three years of trying to dismantle Obamacare, House Republicans now are seeking to use the website’s flawed debut to hasten its collapse.

Health care fraud will come at employers at an alarming rate, in part because the Affordable Care Act opens insurance up to millions of people who have little or no experience buying health insurance, says fraud expert Chuck Whitlock.

Avalere Health’s Elizabeth Carpenter urges everyone to remember the big picture, not just the Obamacare marketplace, “but also on the broader health care system and how things are evolving.”

“Health care costs continue to rise, and as employers look at ways to combat that, there are a number of tactics they might take,” Guardian’s Ray Marra tells EBN. “One of those tactics is to go self-funded, and obviously for self-funded, they need to build some high-end claim protection for themselves…”

Ranging in size from 100 to 30,000 employees, the exchange’s employers include Petco, Kinder Morgan and the Addison Group.

While much attention has been focused on the federal government shutdown and its effect on Affordable Care Act regulations, employers are still awaiting guidance on another key piece of legislation affecting benefits plans, the Defense of Marriage Act.

Having people shop for medical care the way they shop for cars or stereos might be ideal, in some ways. But it is not attainable as long as the shoppers are human beings.