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| November 7, 2007 |
| Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy. |
Today's sponsor is Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc. (EBIA)
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
| Record Retention Requirements for Health & Welfare Plans |
| In Record Retention Requirements for Health & Welfare Plans, EBIA's experts analyze record retention requirements for ERISA health and welfare plans as well as other employer-provided health and welfare benefits not subject to ERISA. You'll find answers to your record retention questions for many benefits including cafeteria plans, DCAPs, qualified transportation plans, HSAs, group health plans (like major medical, dental, health FSAs, and HRAs), and other ERISA benefits.
Available now at the introductory price of $195. Please enter priority code BL195. For more information and to order, visit http://www.ebia.com/OtherOfferings/Books/RecordRetention. |
(a) New Guidance Documents
Request for Public Comments for Report on the U.S. System of Oversight of Genetic Testing
Excerpt: "The Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society (SACGHS) is seeking public comment on a draft report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the oversight of genetic testing. . . . Comments received by December 21, 2007 will be considered by SACGHS in preparing its final draft report." (Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society)
(b) News
California Democrats' Plan Includes Coverage Mandate
Excerpt: "In an effort to reach an eleventh-hour deal on healthcare reform this year, Democratic leaders of the California Legislature are introducing a new bill that comes closer to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal, including requiring all residents to carry health insurance." (Modern Healthcare Online; free registration required)
Ohio's Maternity Leave Creates Workplace Debate
Excerpt: "An Ohio plan to offer 12 weeks' leave to pregnant female workers is not a blanket guarantee, it turns out. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission now says pregnant women should be entitled to three months' leave only if the time off is 'medically recommended.' The medical stipulation was added without fanfare, in response to complaints from business groups, during a commission meeting in late October." (The Plain Dealer)
Retiree Health Care Funding Is Most Important Issue in Duluth MN Mayoral Election, Candidates Say
Excerpt: "The problem: The city of Duluth's health-care coverage for employees is self-insured. Federal accounting rules require the city to set aside an amount of money that could cover all potential health claims. The most recent actuarial study put that amount at $309 million." (Duluth News-Tribune)
Utah Considers Requiring Flat-Rate Payment of Health Care Costs by Insurers
Excerpt: "What if health insurance operated more like auto insurance? That's what a group of health underwriters would like the Legislature to contemplate as it weighs proposals for reducing Utah's growing ranks of uninsured. Their solution deals with the issue indirectly, by targeting what they see as the root of soaring health care costs: the practice of billing insurance companies by procedure." (The Salt Lake Tribune)
(c) Summaries of Guidance; Filed Comments
(None today.)
(d) Trends, Surveys, Research
Health Benefits, Vacation Time Drive Attraction and Retention, According to WorldatWork
Excerpt: "For attraction, vacation time, health coverage and telecommuting ranked the highest, and for retention, defined-benefit retirement plans, vacation time and health coverage ranked highest." (Employee Benefit News; free registration required)
Study Shows Data Exchange, Privacy Policies Key to State E-Health Systems
Excerpt: "Developing an infrastructure for networks to exchange electronic health records and coordinating privacy protections are critical to advance state e-health networks, according to the interim findings of an ongoing study by the American Health Information Management Association, Technology Daily reports." (California HealthCare Foundation)
Impediments to Prescription Compliance Outlined in Study
Excerpt: "Limited or poor prescription adherence costs $1.77 billion annually in direct and indirect health-care costs, according to the study. Direct costs relate to the 'effects that [the] lack of adherence has on medical plans,' according to John Malley, national practice leader for pharmacy benefit consulting for Watson Wyatt in New York. Indirect costs include 'absenteeism, presenteeism and other related issues.'" (Human Resource Executive Online; free registration required)
Health Care Vendor Summits Promote Integration of Services (PDF)
6 pages. Excerpt: "Plan sponsors that must deal with a plethora of health care management and wellness vendors are pushing for greater coordination and integration among vendors. This trend stems from the fact that employee populations today have a variety of health and wellness issues that require different levels of interventions, such as case management to direct the delivery of care, and disease management for those who have chronic illnesses, as well as health coaching, wellness and prevention." (International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
The War on Playing Hooky from the Workplace
Excerpt: "Some companies are instituting tough policies to combat hooky. Others are limiting the amount of time you can take off before unpaid leave kicks in. And then there are those using brawny human resources software that mines worker data and analyzes no-shows--from the hourly scut worker straight up to the middle ranks of the salaried class." (BusinessWeek)
How Two Health Plans Avoided Repaying Millions to CMS for Part D Drug Event Reconciliations
Excerpt: "MemberHealth, which CMS said will receive $321 million back, caught the PDE errors early 'because of the volume of the errors,' . . . . As the PBM responsible for enrolling Community Care Rx's more than 1 million enrollees and handling the vast volume of claims, MemberHealth found all the errors . . . ." (Medicare Part D Compliance News via AISHealth.com)
Health Insurers Develop Video Games to Educate and Engage Consumers
Excerpt: "Both Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and Humana Inc. said in recent weeks that they are launching video games focused on such topics as obesity and diabetes. Humana is in the early stages of developing a series of video games entitled Games for Health, and Kaiser is distributing an obesity-focused game online (accessible at www.kp.org/amazingfooddetective) and at schools to children." (Health Plan Week via AISHealth.com)
U.S.-Based Health Insurers to Offer Consulting Advice to Great Britain's National Health Service
Excerpt: "U.S.-based health plans were among 14 companies selected by Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) as suppliers for its new Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners (FESC) program." (Health Plan Week via AISHealth.com)
Elderly Health Costs Growing Slowly, According to Government Data
Excerpt: "While the growing number of older Americans has been expected to alter patterns of health spending, the impact has been only modest and is expected to remain that way, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said." (AP via Yahoo! News)
Auditing for the Health Insurance Ineligibles
Excerpt: "Companies save millions by weeding out grown children, ex-spouses and other employee dependents who are no longer eligible for benefits." (Workforce Management; free registration required)
Medicare Part D -- How to Reduce Confusion in Enrolling
Excerpt: "Since all competing private plans offered by insurers must register their monthly premiums, individual drug costs, co-payments and approaches to dealing with that coverage gap, the Plan Finder tool miraculously allows users to instantly compare and choose the best coverage. To make best use of this tool, you'll need to get your Medicare card. Then line up all your prescription bottles and dosages." (The Chicago Sun-Times)
Flu Shots Reduce Absenteeism
Excerpt: "Flu shots cost about $30 per employee when administered at the work site, and many local employers have concluded it is worth the cost. 'It enhances morale, provides higher employee job satisfaction and reduces absenteeism,' said Kelly Parkinson, vice president of human resources for First American Bank. 'What's not to like?'" (The Decatur Daily)
(e) Policy, Opinion, Advocacy
Opinion: Why a Single-Payer Health Care System Would Be Good for Counties
Excerpt: "First, opponents of a single-payer system assert that it would amount to 'socialized medicine,' to 'government run medicine,' with health care decisions made by government bureaucrats rather than by physicians. This set of charges distorts the reality of what is proposed." (The Journal of County Administration via Physicians for a National Health Program)
Opinion: Why Would Big Business Defend ERISA?
Excerpt from an article in 'The Hill' followed by comments from PNHP. Excerpt: "With the escalating push toward comprehensive reform, Big Business has an opportunity to dump its health benefits headache onto others through individual mandates to purchase private plans, or onto a national health insurance program. Why should they want to protect ERISA and their self-funded health benefit programs? An old rule is that when something doesn't seem right, start by looking at the money involved." (Physicians for a National Health Program)
New Coalition Strongly Supports ERISA As the 'Very Backbone of Employer-Based Health Care System'
Excerpt: "The National Coalition on Benefits (NCB) is dedicated to working with Congress to maintain employers' ability to provide uniform health and retirement benefits to employees and retirees across state and local lines and to ensure that federal health reform initiatives preserve Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) benefits." (National Coalition on Benefits)
Opinion: Paid Leave Would Make U.S. Workplaces More Family-Friendly
Excerpt: "A growing number of states have paid family leave laws based on programs that operate like state disability insurance. California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have state-administered Temporary Disability Insurance systems or require employers to offer TDI. TDI provides partial wage replacement to employees who are temporarily disabled for medical reasons, including pregnancy- or birth-related medical reasons. State-administered TDI benefits are generally funded through some combination of an employee/employer shared payroll tax." (The South Coast Media Group.)
A Model for Health Care That Pays for Quality
Excerpt: "An influential medical standards group plans to present a new model today for helping employers and insurers to identify the best primary care doctors and to steer patients their way. Those doctors, in turn, would be paid for more services than are currently reimbursed under typical health plan payments for office visits. The idea is to encourage doctors to meet with patients for more than a few minutes during an office visit and to also compensate them, or nurse coordinators, for communicating with patients by phone and e-mail outside office hours." (Tuscaloosa News)
Most Other States Likely Would Have to Increase Taxes to Implement Health Insurance Law Similar to Massachusetts', Experts Say
Excerpt: "Massachusetts' new health insurance law that aims to achieve near-universal coverage in the state might not be easily replicated by other states seeking to overhaul their health care systems, according to policy experts, the Boston Globe reports." (Kaiser Family Foundation)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
SERP Compensation Definition: Counting Severance Pay
2 pages. Excerpt: "The Ninth Circuit was asked to determine whether severance pay counted as compensation under a SERP. The court concluded that severance pay did not constitute 'earnings' for purposes of calculating an executive's benefit under the particular nonqualified top-hat plan at issue. The case is Gilliam v. Nevada Power Company." (National Association of Stock Plan Professionals via Utz Miller & Kuhn, LLC)
Video: Perceptions of Risk and Financial Realities for Baby Boomers for the Next 30 Years
36 slides. 54 minuites. Thomas R. Prohaska, Ph.D., Professor, Director of the Gerontological Public Health Training Program, Co-Director, Institute for Health Research and Policy Center for Research on Health and Aging, Univ of Illinois, Chicago, IL (International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
2007 Executive Benefits Survey of Current Trends (PDF)
44 pages. Excerpt: "In the 2007 Survey, Clark Consulting has identified many noteworthy highlights. Perhaps the most significant trend indicates that Nonqualified Deferred Compensation (NQDC) plans continue to gain prevalence throughout various industries." (Clark Consulting)
Newly Posted Events
403(b) Plan Workshop
in California on November 30, 2007
presented by SunGard Relius
Health and Welfare Update: What Plan Sponsors Should be Doing Now
Nationwide on December 11, 2007
presented by ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits
Looming Fiscal Challenge: Preparing Today for Tomorrow's Budget Crunch - Webcast
Nationwide on November 15, 2007
presented by Deloitte
Staying Below the Health Care Cost Curve - Managing Health Care Costs in Greater St. Louis - Webcast
Nationwide on December 5, 2007
presented by Towers Perrin
Staying Below the Health Care Cost Curve - Managing Health Care Costs in Greater Washington DC - Webcast
Nationwide on December 6, 2007
presented by Towers Perrin
Staying Below the Health Care Cost Curve - Managing Health Care Costs in Metro New York - Webcast
Nationwide on December 5, 2007
presented by Towers Perrin
Staying Below the Health Care Cost Curve - Managing Health Care Costs in New England - Webcast
Nationwide on December 4, 2007
presented by Towers Perrin
Staying Below the Health Care Cost Curve - Managing Health Care Costs in Southern California - Webcast
Nationwide on December 4, 2007
presented by Towers Perrin
Understanding the New Final Circular 230 Regulations - Webcast
Nationwide on November 13, 2007
presented by CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
Webcast: Automatic Enrollment & QDIAs - New Rules, New Opportunities
Nationwide on December 5, 2007
presented by National Institute of Pension Administrators
Newly Posted Press Releases
Employer Support for Long Term Care Insurance Grows
Unum
The Standard Recommends Best Practices for 403(b) Plan Sponsors
The Standard
Business Associations and Companies Unite to Protect Employee Health and Retirement Benefits
National Coalition on Benefits
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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Employee Benefits Administration
for Primary Consulting, Inc.
in ANY STATE
Retirement Plan Administrator
for MVP Plan Administrators, Inc.
in NC
University Director of Retirement Program Services
for Indiana University
in IN
Supervisor, CTA Member Services
for Standard Insurance Company
in OR
Team Lead Operations - Cash Accounting
for Charles Schwab
in CA
Senior Editor
for Thomson Tax & Accounting
in WA
Senior Client Services Director, Defined Contributions
for Mercer
in MA
401(k) Plans Administrator
for Gerdau Ameristeel
in FL
Relationship Manager - Defined Contribution Plans
for Vanguard
in AZ
ERISA Consultant
for Vanguard
in AZ
Customer Service Representative
for Great-West Corporate
in KS
401k and Trust Consultant
for Aureus Group
in NE
Supervisor, Benefits Administration (Ref# JP29083-FF)
for Southern California Edison
in CA
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