A pharmacist takes a 30-day prescription and inputs it as four weekly prescriptions - quadrupling the Medicaid dispensing fee.

Can you imagine a world where the “new norm” required insurers and providers to disclose what they charge upfront? Read as Mark Gaunya, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Underwriters, shares two specific messages he took to the Hill at the Cap Conference and the outcome.

As employees take on more responsibility for paying for health care, voluntary benefits can provide much-needed additional coverage. EBN spoke to a number of voluntary benefits providers to get their thoughts on the major trends they see coming in 2012. Not surprisingly, all the trends and influences in the HR world at large - health care reform, employer cost-shifting, technology and communications - affect the voluntary benefits industry as well. Here, we provide a summary of key trends, along with charts and data to help employers plan their voluntary benefits strategy going forward.

In February of 2010, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, mandates made business associates accountable for the HIPAA security standards that apply to health plans and health care providers. The expanded definition of "business associates" clearly includes brokers and agents. HIPAA, meanwhile, came about in 1996 as the initial attempt to address the growing concern over the protection of medical records

In last month's column I introduced you to the concept of expert positioning. This is when you utilize tools such as article writing, public speaking and video marketing to establish your credentials as the expert in your industry.

PinkPowerLadies.com is an online enrollment platform that helps insurance and financial professionals add cancer and critical illness policies to their portfolio. EBA spoke with the site's Chief Executive Kathy Glover and the site's partner Cary Rentner, president of cancerplans.com.

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the importance of Twitter in the social media world. With the news that Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia has taken a $300 million stake in the social media site, it’s just about impossible.

During this year’s open enrollment, I’m guessing many employers moved to an online enrollment system. In today’s digital age, online enrollment is not only becoming more popular, but employees have come to expect it. Supporting this fact, I recently saw some data from a Guardian study that revealed the use of online benefits enrollment has more than doubled in five years. …

From iPads to Androids to cloud providers, technology evolves oh-so-fast, and FP's annual tech survey reveals that advisor technology usage is changing rapidly too.

As high-deductible and consumer-driven health plans continue to increase in popularity, EBA spoke with Nitra LaGrander, a product manager at Evolution1, a provider of electronic payment, on-premise and cloud computing health care solutions, for tips on how plan participants who are new to these types of plans can easily access their online accounts and take charge of managing their health care dollars.

Just when you thought you understood hosted solutions and software-as-a-service, the technology industry has moved on to cloud computing. Over the last two years there have been all kinds of announcements of cloud computing companies with a wide variety of capabilities, the most notable being Apple's announcement in May of its iCloud offering.

What if you could increase your relevancy and be one of the “top 5” advisers that clients call? Read in today’s BeAdvised how remaining relevant to your clients amidst an ever-changing benefits environment will help you get there.

The downswing in the economy over the last several years has hit HR personnel hard. A recent Aberdeen Group study shows that both line of business managers and even HR managers themselves see HR as less aligned with the strategic needs of their business and overly tactical in practice. So, you want to be a rising star and adviser? Then work with your HR clients and help them change this trend.

Massachusetts Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) has launched a new "Why Life Insurance?" consumer awareness program on Facebook designed to get families thinking and talking about their financial futures.

Even the most able of insurance CIOs may find themselves hard pressed to keep their footing on a rapidly evolving technological playing field. Yet, even if they do, they may find the rules of the game are changing too.

States are looking at different models for their Health Insurance Exchanges, or HIXs. Given that each state will adopt its own approach to HIX implementation, we potentially could end up with 50 different models.

The clock is ticking. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges are targeted to come online in 2014, which means open enrollment must begin in the fall of 2013. Every state is determining its approach, and everyone in the industry is strategizing on how to tap into a projected market of 25 million enrollees by 2016. The states will take different approaches, but the common denominator is technology. This month we'll look at how technology will be utilized in exchanges and identify other corresponding services that will be necessary to make the exchanges a success.

With social media so pervasive in our daily lives, it’s easy overlook the fact that enterprise-ready tools to help companies capitalize on the technology are still nascent.

Wellness programs and solutions providers have been around for a while and are continually evolving based on both successes and failures and the continually changing market landscape. The most recent market impact, of course, is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and it continues to loom large. Many of the national, commercial and local brokers we work with each day are deploying wellness solutions as part of their expansion of services. Brokers are on the front lines when it comes to wellness. Many are making use of social business software capabilities to help employees collaborate and participate.

Choose the right format and set realistic goals to make the effort pay off.