Healthcare plans

With the cost of a private nursing home room running $90,000 a year, many retirees are considering giving all their money to their children in order to qualify for Medicaid. Aside from being a serious financial risk, it shines a bright light on the lack of awareness of long-term care insurance.

While adoption of consumer-driven health plans by employers continues to increase, the perceived risk of CDHP’s high deductibles still makes employees hesitant to switch from the traditional PPO. However, such fears may be unfounded, according to Change Healthcare.

Under health care exchanges, many employees will be selecting benefits previously decided by an employer — providing a chance for brokers and consultants to show their true value, said a panel of experts at the Workplace Benefits Transitions conference December 5.

A majority of high-deductible health plan enrollees misunderstand what types of care are applied to their deductible, leading some to avoid preventive physician visits and tests unneccesarily.

“Investors are concerned about rising health care costs, and they should be,” says one expert with T. Rowe Price, noting that medical expenses topped a list of surveyed respondents’ recent concerns.

2012 election and victory of Obama over Romney means health care industry will change

The healthy as well as sick employees deserve attention in high deductible health plans.

As private exchanges expand and companies consider a future beyond the traditional employer-sponsored health care system, benefits experts weigh in on consumers’ readiness for defined contribution health.

Key considerations for employers and their brokers looking to self-fund.

Justices this week gave no obvious indication of their stance on the case of James McCutchen, who was sued by his benefit plan administrator in an attempt to recoup medical expenses.

Health care reform shifts how hospitals are reimbursed, taking into account patient satisfaction — which could well be mitigated by long emergency room waits — but will online reservations encourage patients to seek even more expensive ER care for non-emergencies?

Retirees can expect to pay a greater share of health care costs out of pocket, benefits industry report states.

Equity Healthcare CEO Robert Galvin last week told the National Business Coalition on Health that Congress, even PPACA supporters, want employer-sponsored insurance in the game for the long haul.

Expansion of consumer-directed health plans and investment in health management programs produced the lowest average annual employer cost increase since 1997, according to the National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, conducted annually by Mercer.

The health care industry will change its focus from expanding the insurance market to reining in medical costs now that the presidential election has been decided, says the CEO of the main lobbying group for health insurers.

Flexibility with rollovers and investments are cited as key advantages to health savings accounts, causing them to become valuable retirement plan assets.

Tesla benefits manager Nate Randall, speaking at Benefits Forum & Expo, details how his company is changing the benefits landscape on a budget.

Scottsdale Health adds a telehealth service to its benefits plan and sees dramatic costs savings because the service keeps non-life-threatening illnesses out of the emergency room.

Political pundit Meghan McCain addresses attendees at Benefits Forum & Expo and explains why she believes neither Republicans or Democrats have the answers to fixing America’s broken health care system

Darden and Sears announce they will use Aon Hewitt’s private health insurance exchange.