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Low-wage workers face difficult choices in today’s high-out-of-pocket health care system. By Bruce W. Sherman, MD and Wendy D. Lynch, PhD Faced with escalating health insurance costs, employers have been making tough choices in recent years. Given a finite human resources budget, should companies sacrifice wages, benefits-eligible workers or health benefits? Evidence suggests some of […]

It’s no secret that small businesses have a lot to offer: collaborative cultures, less bureaucracy, more relaxed attitudes and, in many cases, they provide employees with the chance to build something from the ground up. That said, small businesses may be lagging behind when it comes to benefit offerings. Only 46% of small business employees […]

Oregon may have 10 carriers returning to its individual major medical market in 2017, but not because they earned solid profits in 2017. State regulators were making 2017 individual market rate filings for at least 10 carriers public on Oregon’s section of the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing (SERFF) rate review portal. A […]

Even though the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate is in effect, few employers have updated their employee handbooks to reflect the ACA. Here are some ways employers may bolster their ACA compliance—and avoid ACA penalties—through an ACA-focused employee handbook review. Patricia Moran While employers are undoubtedly already fatigued by ACA compliance, there are several reasons […]

Pet lover Dani Kahn has a dream job. As the pet director at the Trupanion, a pet medical insurance company located in Seattle, she manages all the pet benefits offered by her employer. That includes a program allowing employees to bring up to two dogs or cats to work with them every day. “We have […]

Benefit selection data from nearly 2,400 mid-size employers (100-999 employees) reveals that few of these organizations offer high-deductible health plans, but the average PPO plan carries deductibles high enough to legally classify them as HDHPs under government limits. The study, based on internal files of the cloud-based benefits enrollment and communications platform Benefitfocus, is a […]

You might eat a balanced diet and squeeze in a mix of cardio and weight-lifting workouts every week to stay healthy. But to be truly healthy, you’ve got to focus on more than just working out and eating well. Believe it or not, you’ve also got to focus on oral health. The link between oral […]

Student loan refinancing for millennial workers represents a potentially huge opportunity to attract and retain an energetic young talent pool, but there’s a dark side to this employee benefit offering. To explain, let me get personal. Bloomberg/file photo Like most young people entering the workforce, I was grateful for the financial independence and relieved not […]

Have you embraced supplemental benefit plans as a key part of your company’s benefits strategy? If all the survey data is accurate, employees are expecting employers to provide them with a variety of benefit plan choices that suit their unique lifestyles. Historically, supplemental benefits have been difficult for employers to manage because adding more benefit […]

The Department of Labor’s final fiduciary rules will have far-reaching consequences, even for organizations that don’t feel the rules apply to them. Plan sponsors must also take care because as part of their fiduciary responsibilities they need to monitor what their retirement plan service providers and advisers are doing to make sure they are in compliance […]