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August 13, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Health Benefits Analyst
for The Segal Company in DC

Regional Sales Manager
for Aspire Financial Services in CA, ID, IL, OR, WA

Pension Administrator II
for Beneco in AZ

Benefits Specialist
for Beneco in

Administrator/Paralegal
for Ferenczy + Paul LLP, an employee benefits law firm in CA, GA

Associate Attorney
for Ferenczy + Paul LLP, an employee benefits law firm in CA, GA

401(k) Compliance Testing Consultant
for The Savitz Organization in PA

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Webcasts and Conferences

22nd Annual National Health Benefits Conference & Expo (HBCE)
in Florida on January 29, 2013 presented by Health Benefits Conference & Expo

"Brokerage Accounts and 404a-5: Making Sense of the Rules" - Encore Web Seminar
Nationwide on August 22, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius


We also publish the BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter (free): Subscribe

 

[Guidance Overview]

How Employers Can Handle Medical Loss Ratio Rebates
"To the extent the rebate is a plan asset, it may be used to provide refunds to participants, premium holidays or benefit enhancements. The guidance indicates that plan fiduciaries must act prudently and impartially. However, they do not need to reflect the exact premiums contributed by each participant—'rough justice' will suffice." (Strasburger)


Take the Hassle Out of Enrollment   [Advert.]

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[Guidance Overview]

Massachusetts Law Makes Changes to 'Fair Share Contribution' Rules Regulating Employer-Sponsored Group Health Plans
"While the Act's principal purpose is to address issues of health care cost, quality, and transparency, it makes a minor though important change to the way that employers determine their liability under the 'fair share contribution testing' rules, which form the core of the employer responsibility provisions of the Massachusetts health care reform law." (Mintz Levin)

Wellness 2.0: Outcome-Based Financial Incentives for Getting Healthier
"Until recently, most employers tied wellness incentives to participation. Take a Health Risk Assessment, get a gift card. Submit to biometric screening, pay less for health insur.ance. Go to a seminar, get points towards rewards. Still, questions remain on whether participation truly improves health. As a result, the next generation of wellness programs will continue to try to improve the health of at-risk people by providing rewards for improving health scores, also known as outcomes-based incentives. So far, there has been no real consensus on how these programs should look, act or be measured." (William Gallagher Associates)

One Frightening Statistic on Small Business Health Insur.ance
"Since 1999 the average cost of employee health insur.ance premiums (for family coverage) has risen 84 percent in inflation adjusted terms (148 percent in nominal terms).... [B]etween 1999 and 2008, the revenues at the average American company fell 5 percent in inflation-adjusted terms. Over the same period, employee health care premiums went up 64 percent[.]" (Business Insider)

Make the Most of Health Insur.ance Changes in 2013
"Employers are making other adjustments to costs and incentives that may make a big difference in your expenses. Here are some changes to look out for and strategies for making the most of them. [1] Extra out-of-pocket expenses.... [2] More high-deductible health plans and health savings accounts.... [3] Better tools to compare health care costs.... [4] Stronger incentives to participate in wellness programs.... [5] Reduced flexible-spending limits." (NASDAQ)

Massachusetts Enacts Health Care Reform Legislation Aimed at Cost Containment
"Massachusetts aims to limit the growth of health care costs to the same level as the state's economy. The bill creates mechanisms for capping growth in health care expenditures and for restructuring the delivery system to encourage coordinated care, quality and incentives to adopt alternatives to the current fee-for-service methodologies." (HighRoads)

Pioneering Health Reform State Enacts Cost Controls
"A long-awaited bill to restrain health spending and implement new payment reforms in Massachusetts has obtained its final stamp of approval. But while they hailed the inclusion of provisions designed to reduce medical liability lawsuits, physicians and other health care professionals have lingering concerns about how the state will meet the legislation's ambitious cost-containment goals." (American Medical Association)

More Trauma Care Spending Doesn't Raise Survival Rates
"Spending more on trauma care does not necessarily improve survival rates, a national study suggests. [Recent] research ... finds that the cost of treating trauma patients in the western United States is 33% higher than the cost for treating similarly injured patients in the Northeast. Researchers, however, don't know why." (HealthLeaders Media)

Yoga On Commission: More Employers Pay For Good Health Habits
"[P]oor health habits and preventable illnesses are adding to the expense of [health] plans for employers. A recent survey suggests that, increasingly, employers are seeking to cut healthcare costs from the bottom up—by directly addressing the health habits of their employees." (National Public Radio)

Employers Brace for Health Care Cost Increase
"A recent survey... has confirmed what many already suspected: employers are anticipating an increase in the cost of health benefits due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).... 61% of the 1203 employers surveyed expect a cost increase due to ACA; 20% of those businesses believe that there will be a cost increase of 5% or more; ... 6% of employers surveyed said they were likely to stop providing health benefits after government-run insur.ance exchanges open in 2014." (American Journal of Managed Care)

What's 'Affordable' Health Coverage? Ambiguity in ACA Could Make Family Coverage Too Costly for Some
"Under rules proposed by the [Internal Revenue Service], some working-class families would be unable to afford family coverage offered by their employers, and yet they would not qualify for subsidies provided by the law. The fight revolves around how to define 'affordable' under provisions of the law that are ambiguous. The definition could have huge practical consequences, affecting who gets help from the government in buying health insur.ance." (The New York Times; free registration required)

State by State Enrollment in the Pre-Existing Condition Insur.ance Plan, as of June 30, 2012
"The PCIP program is administered by either the state or the federal government: 23 states and the District of Columbia elected to have their PCIP program administered by the federal government while 27 states have chosen to run their own programs. The PCIP program began accepting applications for enrollment July, 2010 (July 1, 2010 for the federal program, dates for State programs varied). The chart ... details the date when each state began providing benefits to people accepted into the program and the number of people enrolled in the program by each state as June 30, 2012." (Healthcare.gov)

Shaping Up: Workplace Wellness in the '80s Compared to Best Practices Today
"Employer intervention in the health and wellness of workers has over the past 35 years evolved from a hunch that a healthier population could lower health care costs to a science of studies and sophisticated data-based research. What started as a single program aimed at a specific group (like smokers) has become, for many U.S. employers, a philosophy that adopting a culture of health is a pillar of overall corporate success." (Workforce; free registration required)

[Opinion]

Health Reform Without Self-Insur.ance: Using Defined Contribution Designs to Control Health Care Costs
"[A] group of ... economists... [is] proposing two ideas with merit ... Both proposals would convert the open ended subsidies of the current system into a defined contribution approach. The federal government would pledge a fixed sum of money to individuals for private insur.ance. Individual choice and the marketplace, however, would determine what kind of coverage people acquire." (John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)

[Opinion]

New Massachusetts Health Care Cost Containment Legislation Is Inevitable Result of Universal Coverage
"[Since 2006, when Massachusetts expanded health care coverage,] 79% of the newly insured are on public programs. Health costs ... will consume some 54% of the state budget in 2012, up from about 24% in 2001. Over the same period state health spending in real terms has jumped by 59%, while education has fallen 15%, police and firemen by 11% and roads and bridges by 23%. Meanwhile, Massachusetts spends more per capita on health care than any other state and therefore more than anywhere else in the industrialized world. Costs are 27% higher than the U.S. average, 15% higher when adjusted for the state's higher wages and its concentration of academic medical centers and specialists." (The Wall Street Journal)

[Opinion]

Could Employers Use Direct Primary Care to Combat Rising Health Costs?
"Many employers are now trying to incentivize their employees to be as prudent a purchaser of health care as they are of any other product or service. And they're doing this by offering high-deductible health insur.ance policies combined with health savings accounts, or HSAs. For the 50 percent of patients who collectively spend only 3.5 percent of all healthcare dollars, it's a fantastic alternative." (The Health Care Blog)



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