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April 14, 2004 - 8841 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc. 


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(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Many Unready For New Privacy Rules
Excerpt: "The rules require employers with health plans to ensure that workers' personal medical information is never used to make decisions about hiring, firing, promotion or to determine compensation. To comply, many employers must develop policies for safeguarding personal health information, put them in writing and designate a privacy officer in charge of seeing they are followed." (Raleigh [N.C.] News and Observer)

NPR Examines First Year of HIPAA Medical Privacy Rule
Excerpt: "Health care providers have begun 'figuring things out' with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act medical privacy rule, which took effect last April, but 'some glitches remain,' NPR's 'All Things Considered' reports." (KaiserNetwork.org)

HIPAA Privacy-- It's Not Too Late! (PDF)
1 page. Excerpt: "If you haven't already started a HIPAA Privacy Rule compliance plan, don't delay. The Office of Civil Rights, a subdivision of the Department of Health and Human Services, has been charged with enforcement of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Under the Privacy Rule, health plans that are not in compliance could face civil and criminal penalties." (Gardner Carton & Douglas)

United Seeks To Save $55 Million On Benefits
Excerpt: "United Airlines is seeking $55 million in annual cost savings by slashing health benefits for its 35,000 U.S. retirees, according to labor-union officials. The savings would come in the first year of changes United has proposed to retirees' representatives, said a spokesman for the Machinists union, who didn't have data for subsequent years." (Rocky Mountain News)

USA Today Examines Employer Provision of Health Benefits for Domestic Partners
Excerpt: "USA Today on Wednesday examined employers' provision of domestic partner benefits, including health insurance, to same-sex couples. About 23% of companies now offer such benefits to same-sex couples, according to a 2003 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management." (KaiserNetwork.org)

Guard Your Exits! Bracing for Possible Wave of Employee Turnover
Excerpt: "To be sure, the labor market, though improving, is hardly on fire. But a number of recent surveys suggest that hiring is poised to pick up." (Inc. Magazine)

A Pox on Your Budget: Retirement Health Benefits Bode Ill for Local Finances (PDF)
28 pages. Excerpt: "A new Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) rule will require the full cost of retiree health benefits, earned in the current and prior years, to be reflected yearly in financial statements. The dramatic increase in the cost for health care benefits will also add pressure on local governmental resources. This article focuses on how local governments can prepare for the GASB rule." (American City & County magazine, reprinted by ICMA Retirement Corporation)

Hospital Sues Insurer For Not Paying Full Charge
Excerpt: "The debate over hospital charges has led to clashes between insurers and medical centers. One of the latest pits an insurer who refuses to pay full charges against a group of Florida hospitals." (USA Today via Yahoo! News)

Benefit Funds Owed Millions by Hospitals
Excerpt: "Private hospitals in New York City have fallen more than $100 million behind on payments to employee benefit and pension funds in recent years, deepening the hospitals' money woes and threatening thousands of workers with the loss of health insurance and other benefits." (New York Times; one-time registration required)

Are Barriers To Minority Health Care Hurting Your Bottom Line?
Excerpt: "Hispanics, African-Americans and other minority groups often lack access to or don't receive adequate health services. For plan sponsors, these barriers to care represent a significant hidden cost." (BenefitNews.com)

Opinion: U.S. Health System Slow To Adopt Information Technology
Excerpt: "The U.S. health care system that has the technology to develop 'miracle drugs to stave off AIDS and heart attacks,' but it still is 'backward' in many ways, including its slow adoption of information technology, Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein writes." (KaiserNetwork.org)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Same-Sex Marriage Adds To Employers' Challenges Under New California Domestic Partner Laws
Excerpt: "Recent moves toward legal recognition of same-sex marriage in two Canadian provinces and Massachusetts, as well as the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses by the City and County of San Francisco, have confused the picture for employers trying to understand their legal obligations under California's broad new domestic partnership law." (Littler Mendelson)

Overview: FASB Issues Exposure Draft on Share-Based Payment (PDF)
Excerpt: "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on March 31, 2004 issued on schedule its Exposure Draft on amendments to FASB Statement No. 123 (Statement 123), referred to as 'Share-Based Payment.'" (Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)

Opinion: PepsiCo's Pay Choice-- Options or Free Shares
Excerpt: "Some companies, like Microsoft Corp., are abandoning stock options entirely for free shares of stock. Others are cutting back on stock options and replacing them with free shares. PepsiCo Inc. has decided to give many of its executives a choice between stock options and free shares." (Graef Crystal on Bloomberg.com)

A Look At Executive Pay During 2003
Excerpt: "Top CEO paychecks in 2003 were, as usual, off-the-charts amazing. But the pace of overall raises for execs slowed considerably." (Business Week)

Compensating Directors: Balancing Economic Pressures with the Critical Need for Qualified Candidates
Excerpt: "Organizations are facing a dilemma of increasing board pay to attract top-notch talent and a reluctance to do so, given several pressing factors, not least of which is the corporate governance arena. In this article ... Michael Powers and Gerard Leider of Hewitt Associates, shed some light on recent practices in the U.S." (Hewitt)

Legislative Update from Groom Law Group
4/9/04. Excerpt: "In the last several weeks, the House and Senate haggled over and have now passed pension funding relief legislation, and there has been some renewed activity on legislation to change the rules for nonqualified deferred compensation plans. Here is our update on recent developments." (Groom Law Group)

Corporate Governance Officer: the Hot New Job
Excerpt: "Shareholders like to meet with CGOs. Peter C. Clapman, head of corporate governance at the pension fund TIAA-CREF, says governance officers who attend the same seminars and other functions he does are able to understand the needs of investors." (Corporate Board Member Magazine)

New Federal Rules Could Alter Views of Employee Stock Options
Excerpt: "Two weeks ago, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) turned up the heat on that debate by proposing a new rule requiring options to be expensed at 'fair value.' If the proposed rule, now in a public-comment period, goes into effect, it likely would erase billions of dollars in reported corporate profits." (Miami Herald; one-time registration required)

Newly Posted Press Releases

Peoria Retirement Plan Professionals Receive Highly Regarded Designations
(Alliance Benefit Group)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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