Employee Benefit News

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Economic pressures have pushed third-party administrators to proactively market to potential employer-clients. With an increasingly complicated regulatory environment, TPAs are demonstrating their worth with enhanced marketing techniques.

Device makers urge coverage of weight-loss surgery

Device manufacturers are pushing the government and health insurers to cover weight-loss surgery, an effort that could give millions more obese Americans access to the treatments.

Little change in U.S. obesity rates in recent years

The number of kids and adults in the United States who are obese has held steady over the last few years, two reports out Tuesday suggest.

Six don’ts for small employers when choosing group health coverage

What could pediatrician appointments possibly have to do with Joe Merrick's business as an online precious metals dealer? When it comes to health insurance, the answer is everything. The 13 full-time employees of Merrick's Dallas-based Provident Metals have 30 children, all under the age of 15, with four babies born in 2011 alone. That means potentially high medical bills for everything from childbirth to vaccinations, which Merrick had to factor into his health-insurance decisions.

HR's role in M&A activity grows

HR’s role in merger and acquisition deals is growing, say M&A experts at management consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

5 tips for achieving better absence management results

Michael Klachefsky is Standard Insurance Company’s national practice leader for the company’s Workplace Possibilities program, which helps employers prevent and manage employee absence and disability. In this segment of EBN's "Five Minutes With ..." he talks with Associate Editor Lisa Gillespie about employee absence and productivity challenges that employers are facing and what can be done to overcome them.

Should an employer allow an employee to work on a side business?

Should an employer allow an employee to work on a side business? The question is fraught with ethical issues. The word thorny comes to mind, which is why we called on Gregory Fairchild. As an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, Fairchild teaches strategy, entrepreneurship and ethics. He says the outside-work question can often be distilled to a fairly simple equation: "To what degree is there an implicit versus an explicit agreement about working on a side business?"

The calm before the storm

Living in Florida means not worrying about getting a good parking place when I'm shopping. In fact, the weather is so beautiful in Florida this time of year that I purposefully park far away. It allows the ol' pedometer a chance to click a few extra times as I work off the eggnog consumed over the holidays and also allows me to enjoy a little sun on my face and the sight of palm trees swaying in the breeze. But we all know the weather in Florida isn't always so pleasant. Hurricanes agree with all those Disney tourists that Florida is a favorite place to visit. The most recent one in our area, Wilma, came from the southwest with a vengeance. It slammed us - uprooting trees, knocking down power lines, sending roof tiles as projectile missiles through the air. Then it cleared. And the weather was sunny and calm. And for a short amount of time, all was well. But it was only the eye of the storm - with even more damaging hurricane winds churning behind it.

Pros and cons of severance agreements

Employers who pay out severance to their employees run certain risks that need to be considered beforehand. Some employers have learned the hard way that severance agreements aren't always the best course of action. Last year, the University of Oregon received bad press when it was discovered that former head coach Mike Bellotti received a substantial payout upon his departure. …

Controlling Health Care Costs: Your Employee as Consumer

Keynote speaker:

In your role as an HR leader, you are accountable for performance on many levels - from improved productivity to reduced turnover to benefit/cost management. Giving employees the tools to make them true health care consumers can have a significant impact on your organization's bottom line.

Please join us for this presentation to:

• See how the wide disparity in the pricing of health care services within networks and provider groups can lead to employees frequently overpaying for services.
• Learn how higher cost care options do not equal better quality outcomes.
• Discover how your employees can become engaged consumers of health care, using market disparities to save money for themselves and your company.
• See a demonstration of one leading cost and quality transparency solution that is delivering on the promise of health care consumerism.

Attendees will learn:

• About the disparate costs of health care services and how this information can be used to decrease health care costs.
• How to turn employees into true health care consumers.
• How Castlight, a quality and transparency tool, can help you engage employees and get real savings results.
• How turning employee into well-informed consumers equals success for every part of your business.

Featuring:

Sponsored by:

401(k) plan sponsors restore contributions & focus on investments

Nearly two-thirds (63.8%) of plan sponsors have changed the investment lineup in their 401(k) plan in the past year, up markedly from a mere 20% in 2008, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

'Twas the night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas when all through HR, the year's work was done, some mundane and some bizarre.

Benefits Barometer

EBN's annual Benefits Barometer is a comprehensive and convenient benchmarking guide to everything from average annual premiums for health coverage to the number of investment options in 401(k) plans.

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Senate bill would nullify specialty health care decision

Last Thursday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) introduced the Representation Fairness Restoration Act (S. 1843), a bill that would effectively revoke the National Labor Relations Board’s recent decision in Specialty Healthcare, and establish criteria for determining an appropriate bargaining unit. In Specialty Healthcare, the Board determined a petitioned-for unit will be deemed appropriate so long as that unit consists of a clearly identifiable group of employees. If an employer contends that the unit should include additional…