Wellness

Wearable wellness is here to stay, yet precisely how the devices will affect employer programs remains to be seen.

With an endorsement from the Affordable Care Act, outcomes-based wellness programs are gaining popularity. In the process, the way employers incentivize participation is changing in step with evolving user-friendly technologies.

Encouraging the use of video game-styled features on smartphones to boost participation in your wellness program might get employees off to a good start, but these tools might not be the best long-term solution to building engagement.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s new focus on employer wellness programs has many health and benefit managers scratching their heads on what is acceptable when it comes to voluntary health screenings and incentive rules under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

EBN’s annual Benefits Forum & Expo, held last week in Boca Raton, Fla., included a special focus on wearable wellness and an inspirational keynote address from marathon swimmer Diana Nyad. In case you missed the event, here’s our coverage.

Employing a proactive strategy to address the explosive costs of specialty medications can serve the patients who need those specialized meds, with an unbelievable 63% increase in costs expected in the next two years.

Narrow networks of health care providers offer new ways for employers and health plans to control the costs of care. But many of these networks are being constructed without regard to the value they deliver, says Scott Wallace, visiting professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.

Commentary: Your new wellness vendor’s presentation showed impressive results from their work with other clients – risk factors reduced, cost curves bent, and ROI blossomed. It all sounds terrific.

All comprehensive wellness platforms should consist of four core programs — wellness, disease management, EAP and work life components — says Yale Mallinger of wellness company HMC-HealthWorks, but it’s what makes up those components that counts.

Gone are the days of hula chairs and ThighMasters at the desk, new technologies and wearable devices are playing into the benefits and wellness strategies of employers, Amy McDonough, Fitbit’s director of wellness, told conference goers at the 2014 Employee Benefits Forum & Expo, being held this week in Boca Raton, Fla.

Hallmark’s director of wellness engagement shares her company’s success tactics and provides tips on how advisers can help their clients to start a program and make it successful.

A new self-service tool for employers and brokers aims to make the RFP process for pharmacy benefit plans a little easier.

In an era when health care consumerism is being touted as a game-changer for employer-sponsored benefits, offering employees a variety of choices when it comes to how and where they fill their drug prescriptions is an important satisfaction driver.

The Employer Measures of Productivity, Absence and Quality program, originally launched in 2001, is getting a new life after a two-year pause thanks to the National Business Group on Health’s partnership with Truven Health Analytics.

The American Benefits Council has introduced its strategic plans for health and retirement policy, providing 46 specific regulatory recommendations for Congress to consider in easing the burdens on employees, employers and government agencies.

As the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, a consortium of companies that includes consumer staples such as Mars, Inc., Nestle USA, Bumble Bee Foods, General Mills, PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Company, surpassed its goal of cutting calories from its food and beverage products, employers can also play a vital role in helping to solve nation’s obesity epidemic.

U.S. health care spending is expected to reach close to 19% of America’s gross domestic product by next year, and private sector leaders are taking the opportunity to unite and create a healthier employee base.

Last week Apple unveiled its Apple Watch and Apple HealthKit app to much fanfare. But how these new technologies will fit into or transform the health care landscape remains to be seen. Catch up on EBA’s coverage and analysis of the event to see how these new technologies could impact the benefits business.

A panel of U.S. companies representing more than 1 million active employees and another 50 million retirees across the globe convened Tuesday in Washington, D.C. to unveil a campaign aimed at reducing the nation’s health care costs.

As interest increases in employers offering voluntary benefits, a particularly large number of employers are beginning to add a more robust range of voluntary benefits to improve morale of existing employees and attract new talent.