5 things small business owners should know about this year's open enrollment

The benefits small business owners offer are crucial to the way they attract and retain employees. Read this blog post for five things small business owners should know for 2019 open enrollment.

As a small business owner, offering competitive employee benefits is a crucial way to attract and retain strong talent. Whether you currently provide them and are planning next year’s renewal, or you are thinking of offering them for the first time, here are five things you should consider before your employees enter the open enrollment period for next year on November 1st:

1. Small businesses don’t have to wait until open enrollment to offer benefits to their employees

While your employees won’t be able to enroll in health insurance plans until November comes along, small business owners don’t have to wait at all to secure health insurance for their employees. The sooner you act, the better, to guarantee that you and your employees are protected. According to recent studies, healthier employees are happier employees, and as a result, will contribute to a more productive workplace. And a more positive and constructive work environment is better for you, your employees, and your business as a whole.

2. Health literacy is important

Whether you’ve provided health insurance to your employees before, or you’re looking into doing so for the first time, it is always worthwhile to prioritize health insurance literacy. There is a host of terminology and acronyms, not to mention rules and regulations that can be overwhelming to wrap your head around.

Thankfully, the internet is full of relevant information, ranging from articles to explainer videos, that should have you up to speed in no time. Having a good understanding of insurance concepts such as essential health benefits, employer contributions, out-of-pocket maximums, coinsurance, provider networks, co-pays, premiums, and deductibles is a necessary step to being better equipped to view and compare health plan options side-by-side. A thorough familiarization with health insurance practices and terms will allow you to make the most knowledgeable decisions for your employees and your business.

3. Offering health insurance increases employee retention

Employees want to feel like their health is a priority, and are more likely to join a company and stay for longer if their health care needs are being met. A current survey shows that 56 percent of Americans whose employers were sponsoring their health care considered whether or not they were happy with their benefits to be a significant factor in choosing to stay with a particular job. The Employee Benefit Research Institute released a survey in 2016 which showed a powerful connection between decent workplace health benefits and overall employee happiness and team spirit—59 percent percent of employees who were pleased with their benefits were also pleased with their jobs. And only 8 percent of employees who were dissatisfied with their benefits were satisfied with their jobs.

4. Alleviate health insurance costs

High insurance costs can be an obstacle for small business owners. A new survey suggests that 53 percent of American small business owners stress over the costs of providing health care to their employees. The 2017 eHealth report reveals that nearly 80 percent of small businesses owners are concerned about health insurance costs, and 62 percent would consider a 15 percent increase in premiums to make small group health insurance impossible to afford. However, there are resources in place to help reduce these costs, so they aren’t too much of a barrier. One helpful way to cut down on health insurance costs is to take advantage of potential tax breaks available to small business owners. All of the financial contributions that employers make to their employees’ premiums are tax-deductible, and employees’ financial contributions are made pre-tax, which will successfully decrease a small business’ payroll taxes.

Additionally, if your small business consists of fewer than 25 employees, you may be eligible for tax credits if the average yearly income for your employees is below $53,000. It is also beneficial to note that for small business owners, the biggest driver on insurance cost will be the type of plan chosen in addition to the average age of your employees. Your employees’ health is not a relevant factor.

5. Utilize digital resources

You don’t have to be an insurance industry expert to shop for medical plans. There are resources and tools available that make buying medical plans as easy as purchasing a plane ticket or buying a pair of shoes online – Simple, transparent. Insurance is a very complex industry that can easily be simplified with the use of the advanced technology and design of online marketplaces. These platforms are great tools for small business owners to compare prices and benefits of different plans side-by-side. Be confident while shopping for insurance because all of the information is laid out on the table. Technological solutions such as digital marketplaces serve as useful tools to modernize the insurance shopping process and ensure that you and your team are covered without going over your budget.

SOURCE: Poblete, S. (15 October 2018) "5 things small business owners should know about this year's open enrollment" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitspro.com/2018/10/15/5-things-small-business-owners-should-know-about-t/

by 6drachael

Pecans, Marshmallows and Sweet Potatoes?

Happy Holidays! In celebration of the holidays, the Saxon crew has decided to share one of our favorite holiday recipes for this month’s Fresh Brew! We hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Pecan and Marshmallow Streusel

Ingredients

12 large sweet potatoes
3/4 cup (11/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup toasted pecan pieces
1 cup miniature marshmallows

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Wash the sweet potatoes, scrubbing them well to remove any dirt. With a fork, prick the sweet potatoes in a couple of spots and place them on a sheet pan. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center goes in easily.
In a large bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and flour together until it’s crumbly-looking. Add the cinnamon, salt, pecans, and marshmallows; fold the streusel topping together to combine.
Slice the sweet potatoes lengthwise down the center and push the ends towards the middle so it opens up. Stuff the sweet potatoes generously with the streusel topping and return to the oven. Bake for another 20 minutes, or until the topping is bubbly and brown.

This recipe was provided by Food Network. If you’d like to visit the original source, please click here.

**Holiday Hours

Our office will be closed Thursday, November 22. We will be open Friday, November 23 from 8:30 a.m. – noon. We wish you a happy Thanksgiving filled with family, friends and good food!

Give It A Try & Share It!

by 6drachael

HR’s recurring headache: Convincing employees to get a flu shot

According to The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the flu cost U.S. companies billions of dollars in medical fees and lost earnings. Read this blog post to learn how HR departments are convincing their employees to get a flu shot.

Elizabeth Frenzel and her team are the Ford assembly line of flu shots: They can administer about 1,800 flu shots in four hours.

Frenzel is the director of employee health and wellbeing at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and with 20,000 employees, she is no stranger to spearheading large flu shot programs. The center where Frenzel administers flu shots has roughly a 96% employee vaccination rate. Back in 2006, only about 56% of employees got their shots.

“When you run these large clinics, safety is critically important,” she says.

Problems like Frenzel’s are not unique. Every fall, HR departments send mass emails encouraging employees to get vaccinated. The flu affects workforces across the country, costing U.S. companies billions of dollars in medical fees and lost earnings, according toThe National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. It is not only a cause of absenteeism but a sick employee can put their coworkers at risk. Last year the flu killed roughly 80,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Even if an employer offers a flu shot benefit, the push to get employees to sign up for the vaccine can be a two-month slough, with reminder emails going unanswered. Moreover, companies often contend with misconceptions about the shot, such as the popular fallacy that shots will make you sick, running out of the vaccine, and sometimes just plain employee laziness.

In Frenzel’s case, increasing the number of employees who got flu shots weren’t just a good idea, but it was needed to protect the lives of the cancer patients they interact with every day. The most startling fact, she says, was that healthcare workers who interact with patients daily were less likely to get vaccinated.

“So that’s how we started down the path,” she says. “Really targeting these people who had the closest patient contact.”

Frenzel credits the significant increase in employee participation in the flu shot program to several factors. They made the program mandatory — a common move in the healthcare industry — but Frenzel says their improvement also was related to flu shot education. The center made it a priority to explain to staff members exactly why they should get vaccinated. Frenzel made it more convenient, offering the vaccine at different hours of the day, so all employees could fit it into their schedule. They also made it fun, offering stickers for employees to put on their badge once they got a shot. Every year, she says, they pick a new color.

Employers outside of the medical industry are focused on improving their flu shot programs, including Edward Yost, manager of employee relations and development at the Society for Human Resource Management, who helped organize a health fair and flu shot program for 380 employees.

Yost says onsite flu shot programs are more effective than vouchers that allow employees to get vaccinated at a primary care doctor or pharmacy. The more convenient you make the program, he says, the more likely employees will use it.

“There’s no guarantee that those vouchers are going to be used,” he says. “Most people aren’t running out to a Walgreens or a CVS saying, please stab me in the arm.”

Besides the convenience, employees are more likely to sign up for a shot when they see co-workers getting vaccinated, Yost says. If a company decides to offer an onsite program, planning ahead is key. Sometimes employees will not sign up in advance for the vaccine but then decide they want to get one once the vendor arrives onsite. Yost recommends companies order extra vaccines.

“Make sure that you’re building in the expectation that there's going to be at least a handful of folks who are more or less what you call walk-ins in that circumstance,” he says.

Incentivizing employees to get the flu shot is also important, Yost says. Some firms will offer a gym membership or discounted medical premiums if they attend regular checkups and get a biometric screening in addition to a flu shot. He recommends explaining to employees how a vaccine can help reduce the number of sick days they may use.

“Employees need to see that there’s something in it for them,” Yost says. “And quite honestly, being sick is a miserable thing to experience.”

Affiliated Physicians is one of the vendors that can come in and administer flu shots in the office. The company has provided various employers with vaccines for more than 30 years, including SourceMedia, the parent company of Employee Benefit News andEmployee Benefit Adviser. In the past 15 years, Ari Cukier, chief operating officer of the company, says there’s been an increase in the amount of smaller companies signing up for onsite vaccines. HR executives should be aware of the number of employees signing up for vaccinations when scheduling an onsite visit.

“We can’t go onsite for five shots, but 20-25 shots and up, we’ll go,” Cukier says.

Cukier agrees communication between human resources departments and employees is crucial in getting people to sign up for shots. Over the years, he’s noticed that more people tend to sign up for shots based on the severity of the previous flu season.

“Last year, as bad as it was, we have seen a higher participation this year,” he says.

Brett Perkison, assistant professor of occupational medicine at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, says providing a good flu shot program starts from the top down. The company executives, including the CEO and HR executives, should set an example by getting and promoting the shots themselves, he says.

It’s also important to listen to employee concerns. Before implementing a program, if workers are taking issue with the shot, it’s best to hold focus groups to alleviate any worries before the shots are even being administered, he says.

Some employees may even believe misconceptions like the flu shot will make one sick or lead to long-term illnesses, he says. Others may question the effectiveness of the shot. Having open lines of communication with employees to address these concerns will ensure that more will sign up, Perkison says.

Regardless of the type of flu shot program, the most important part is preventing illness, SHRM’s Yost says. While missing work and losing money are important consequences of a flu outbreak, having long-term health issues is even more serious, he says. Plus, no one likes being sick.

“Who’s going to argue about that?” he says.

This article originally appeared in Employee Benefit News.

SOURCE: Hroncich, C (24 October 2018) "HR’s recurring headache: Convincing employees to get a flu shot" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/hrs-recurring-headache-convincing-employees-to-get-a-flu-shot

by 6drachael

Why employee performance management needs an HR tech overhaul

Are annual performance reviews necessary? A recent survey by Adobe reveals that 58 percent of people feel that performance reviews are not necessary. Continue reading to learn more.

According to a recent survey conducted by Adobe, 58% of people feel that performance reviews “are a needless HR requirement.” Adobe, in fact, no longer has an annual performance review process and instead has adopted an approach involving ongoing discussions between managers and employees that emphasize talent development and future productivity instead of formal ratings and rankings based on past performance.

Still, the vast majority of companies continue to persist with a backward-looking evaluation process that is time-consuming for managers, demotivating for employees and of negligible benefit to the business as a whole. They do this because, as Adobe’s survey respondents suspected, performance reviews are more about “compliance than customer service.”

Focusing on past performance is an industrial-era hangover from when employees were mainly required to hit targets in easily measurable, repetitive tasks. Although most people’s jobs have evolved to be more complex and creative since then, the process and the tools used to manage their efficacy and performance in those roles have not.

In many respects, HR is still a defensive function whose role is to protect the business from its own employees. This is reflected by HR technology that is built for compliance, rather than helping managers and employees become more productive.

HR’s on-premise or enterprise resource planning systems can track performance reviews to prove a dismissal was not unfair, rank employees to justify compensation distribution and demonstrate effective people management to the board or shareholders. What they can’t do is react positively to the ever-changing demands of the modern business world and help employees and managers meaningfully improve their skills to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Performance management is changing — but HR tech is not

These days, a company’s and individual employee’s goals can change dramatically in the time between end-of-year reviews. Individual roles are more specialized and require frequent skill updates, while cross-functional teams have long since replaced the siloed departments that were standard just 10 years ago. In this environment, HR’s focus on past compliance is detrimental to future development.

Forward-thinking companies are changing the performance process to focus on development and continuous feedback that makes managers and employees more productive and engaged. The success of these trailblazers will encourage other businesses from a wide range of industries to follow suit.

This new model of performance management needs help from technology, but existing HR tech vendors are not keeping up. Their services are so embedded in the world of compliance, they cannot change to support the development needs of managers and employees. Fortunately, the solution already exists.

Creating a connected system of productivity

One of the key issues with performance reviews is that so much of the process involves looking back to gather the data. For managers, it is a huge time investment. For employees, end-of-year feedback about an issue that occurred months beforehand is too late to be useful.

The process seems doubly inefficient when you realize that real-time, instantly-actionable performance data is already available in productivity systems like JIRA and Salesforce that are used by different teams. The problem is HR’s defensive mindset has made it difficult to integrate existing internal or ERP systems with these tools.

Dedicated performance management services that connect to both HR systems and the departmental productivity tools can take HR technology out of its silo. This will create a connected system of productivity that uses real-time data alongside transparent and flexible goal-tracking to drive ongoing development conversations between managers and employees.

It’s time for HR to evolve from a defensive function to make a positive contribution to key business goals and become what HR analyst Josh Bersin calls the “chief of productivity.” This demands a shift from a performance review process based on compliance to a human-centered, development-focused experience.

Adopting new performance technology that integrates with widely-used productivity tools is a key step to ensuring everyone from employees to managers to HR can work on what matters most in order to meet today’s goals and tomorrow’s challenges.

SOURCE: Dennerline, D. (15 October 2018) "Why employee performance management needs an HR tech overhaul" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/why-employee-performance-management-needs-an-hr-tech-overhaul?brief=00000152-14a7-d1cc-a5fa-7cffccf00000

by 6drachael

8 ways to maintain HSA eligibility

Is your high-deductible health plan still HSA qualified? Ensuring your high-deductible health plan remains HSA qualified is no easy task. Read this blog post for eight ways employers can maintain HSA eligibility.

For employers sponsoring high-deductible health plans with health savings accounts, ensuring that the HDHP continuously remains HSA qualified is no easy task. One challenge in this arena is that most of the rules and regulations are tax-related, and most benefit professionals are not tax professionals.

To help, we’ve created a 2019 pre-flight checklist for employers.

With 2019 rapidly approaching and open enrollment season beginning for many employers, now’s a great time to double-check that your HDHP remains qualified. Here are eight ways employers can maintain HSA eligibility.

1. Ensure in-network plan deductibles meet the 2019 minimum threshold of $1,350 single/$2,700 family.

To take the bumps out of this road, evaluate raising the deductibles comfortably above the thresholds. That way, you won’t have to spend time and resources amending the plan and communicating changes to employees each year that the threshold increases. Naturally, plan participants may not be thrilled with a deductible increase; however, if your current design requires coinsurance after the deductible, it’s likely possible on a cost neutral basis to eliminate this coinsurance, raise the deductible and maintain the current out-of-pocket maximum. For example:

	Current	Proposed
Deductible	$1,350 single / $2,700 family	$2,000 single / $4,000 family
Coinsurance, after deductible	80%	100%
Out-of-pocket maximum	$2,500 single / $5,000 family	$2,500 single / $5,000 family

This technique raises the deductible, improves the coinsurance and does not change the employee’s maximum out-of-pocket risk. The resulting new design may also prove easier to explain to employees.

2. Ensure out-of-pocket maximums do not exceed the maximum 2019 thresholds of $6,750 single/$13,500 family.

Remember that the 2019 HDHP out-of-pocket limits, confusingly, are lower than the Affordable Care Act 2019 limits of $7,900 single and $15,800 family. (Note to the U.S. Congress: Can we please consider merging these limits?) Also, remember that out-of-pocket costs do not include premiums.

3. If your plan’s family deductible includes an embedded individual deductible, ensure that each individual in the family must meet the HDHP statutory minimum family deductible ($2,700 for 2019).

Arguably, the easiest way to do so is making the family deductible at least $5,400, with the embedded individual deductible being $5,400 ÷ 2 = $2,700. However, you’ll then have to raise this amount each time the IRS raises the floor, which is quite the hidden annual bear trap. Thus, as in No. 1, if you’re committed to offering embedded deductibles, consider pushing the deductibles well above the thresholds to give yourself some breathing room (e.g., $3,500 individual and $7,000 family).

For the creative, note that the individual embedded deductible within the family deductible does not necessarily have to be the same amount as the deductible for single coverage. But, whether or not your insurer or TPA can administer that out-of-the-box design is another question. Also, beware of plan designs with an embedded single deductible but not a family umbrella deductible; these designs can cause a family to exceed the out-of-pocket limits outlined in No. 2.

Perhaps the easiest strategy is doing away with embedded deductibles altogether and clearly communicating this change to plan participants.

4. Ensure that all non-preventive services and procedures, as defined by the federal government, are subject to the deductible.

Of note, certain states, including Maryland, Illinois and Oregon, passed laws mandating certain non-preventive services be covered at 100%. While some of these states have reversed course, the situation remains complicated. If your health plan is subject to these state laws, consult with your benefits consultant, attorney and tax adviser on recommended next steps.

Similarly, note that non-preventive telemedicine medical services must naturally be subject to the deductible. Do you offer any employer-sponsored standalone telemedicine products? Are there any telemedicine products bundled under any 100% employee-paid products (aka voluntary)? These arrangements can prove problematic on several fronts, including HSA eligibility, ERISA and ACA compliance.

Specific to HSA eligibility, charging a small copay for the services makes it hard to argue that this isn’t a significant benefit in the nature of medical care. While a solution is to charge HSA participants the fair market value for standalone telemedicine services, which should allow for continued HSA eligibility, this strategy may still leave the door open for ACA and ERISA compliance challenges. Thus, consider eliminating these arrangements or finding a way to compliantly bundle the programs under your health plan. However, as we discussed in the following case study, doing so can prove difficult or even impossible, even when the telemedicine vendor is your TPA’s “partner vendor.”

Finally, if your firm offers an on-site clinic, you’re likely well aware that non-preventive care within the clinic must generally be subject to the deductible.

5. Depending on the underlying plan design, certain supplemental medical products (e.g., critical illness, hospital indemnity) are considered “other medical coverage.” Thus, depending on the design, enrollment in these products can disqualify HSA eligibility.

Do you offer these types of products? If so, review the underlying plan design: Do the benefits vary by underlying medical procedure? If yes, that’s likely a clue that the products are not true indemnity plans and could be HSA disqualifying. Ask your tax advisor if your offered plans are HSA qualified. Of note, while your insurer might offer an opinion on this status, insurers are naturally not usually willing to stand behind these opinions as tax advice.

6. The healthcare flexible spending account 2 ½-month grace period and $500 rollover provisions — just say no.

If your firm sponsors non-HDHPs (such as an HMO, EPO or PPO), you may be inclined to continue offering enrollees in these plans the opportunity to enroll in healthcare flexible spending accounts. If so, it’s tempting to structure the FSA to feature the special two-and-a-half month grace period or the $500 rollover provision. However, doing so makes it challenging for an individual, for example, enrolled in a PPO and FSA in one plan year to move to the HDHP in the next plan year and become HSA eligible on day one of the new plan year. Check with your benefits consultant and tax adviser on the reasons why.

Short of eliminating the healthcare FSA benefit entirely, consider prospectively amending your FSA plan document to eliminate these provisions. This amendment will, essentially, give current enrollees more than 12 months’ notice of the change. While you’re at it, if you still offer a limited FSA program, consider if this offering still makes sense. For most individuals, the usefulness of a limited FSA ebbed greatly back in 2007. That’s when the IRS, via Congressional action, began allowing individuals to contribute to the HSA statutory maximum, even if the individual’s underlying in-network deductible was less.

7. TRICARE

TRICARE provides civilian health benefits for U.S Armed Forces military personnel, military retirees and their dependents, including some members of the Reserve component. Especially if you employ veterans in large numbers, you should become familiar with TRICARE, as it will pay benefits to enrollees before the HDHP deductible is met, thereby disqualifying the HSA.

8. Beware the incentive.

Employers can receive various incentives, such as wellness or marketplace cost-sharing reductions, which could change the benefits provided and the terms of an HDHP. These types of incentives may allow for the payment of medical care before the minimum deductible is met or lower the amount of that deductible below the statutory minimums, either of which would disqualify the plan.

This article originally appeared in Employee Benefit News.

SOURCE: Pace, Z.; Smith, B. (22 October 2018) "8 ways to maintain HSA eligibility" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/8-ways-to-maintain-hsa-eligibility

by 6drachael

4 FAQs about 2019 Medicare rates

Some high-income enrollees of Medicare Part B may experience premium increases of 7.4 percent. According to Medicare managers, Medicare Part B premium increases will be held to about 1.1 percent for most enrollees in 2019. Read on to learn more.

Medicare managers announced last week that they will hold increases in Medicare Part B premiums to about 1.1 percent for most enrollees in 2019. For some high-income enrollees, however, premiums will rise 7.4 percent.

Medicare Part B is the component of the traditional Medicare program that covers physician services and hospital outpatient care.

Here’s a look at how the monthly Part B premiums will change, by annual income level:

Individuals earning less than $85,000, and couples earning less than $170,000:$135.50 in 2019, from $134 this year.
Individuals earnings $160,000 to $500,000, and couples earning $320,000 to $750,000: $433.40 in 2019, from $428.60 this year.
Individuals earning $500,000 or more, and couples earning $750,000 or more: $460.50 in 2019, from $428.60 this year.

The annual Medicare Part B deductible will increase by 1.1 percent, to $185.

Another component of the traditional Medicare program, Medicare Part A, covers inpatient hospital bills.

Medicare managers use payroll taxes to cover most of the cost of running the Medicare Part A program. Few Medicare Part A enrollees pay premiums for that coverage. But, for the enrollees who do have to pay premiums for Medicare Part A coverage, the full premium will increase 3.6 percent, to $437 per month.

The Medicare Part A deductible for inpatient hospital care will increase 1.8 percent, to $1,340.

Why are high earners paying so much more for Medicare Part B?

Congress has been increasing the share of Medicare costs that high earners pay in recent years.

For 2018, the top annual income category for Medicare Part B rate-setting purposes was for $160,000 and over for individuals, and for $320,000 and over for couples. Premiums from those Medicare Part B enrollees are supposed to cover 80 percent of their Part B claims.

In the Balanced Budget Act of 2018, Congress added a new annual income category: for individuals earning $500,000 or more and couples earning $750,000 or more. Premiums from Part B enrollees in that income category are supposed to cover 85 percent of those enrollees’ Part B claims.

Who do these rate increases actually affect?

Medicare now has about 60 million enrollees of all kinds, according to the CMS Medicare Enrollment Dashboard.

About 21 million are in Medicare Advantage plans and other plans with separate premium-setting processes.

About 38 million are in the traditional Medicare Part A, the Medicare Part B program, or both the Medicare Part A and the Medicare Part B programs. CMS refers to the traditional Medicare Part A-Medicare Part B program as Original Medicare. The rate increases have a direct effect on the Original Medicare enrollees’ costs.

How do the Medicare increases compare with the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)?

The Social Security Administration recently announced that the 2019 Social Security COLA will be 2.8 percent.

That means the size of the COLA will be greater than the increase in Medicare premiums for all Medicare enrollees other than the highest-income Medicare Part B enrollees and the enrollees who pay the full cost of the Medicare Part A premiums.

Why should financial professionals care about Original Medicare premiums?

For consumers who already have traditional Medicare coverage, the Part A and Part B premiums may affect how much they have to spend on other insurance products and related products, such as Medicare supplement insurance coverage.

For retirement income planning clients, Medicare costs are something to factor into income needs calculations.

Because access to Medicare coverage is critical to all but the very wealthiest retirees, knowledge about how to get and keep eligibility for Medicare coverage on the most favorable possible terms is of keen interest to many consumers ages 50 and older. Some consumers may like to get information about that topic from their insurance agents, financial planners and other advisors.

Resources

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs Medicare, are preparing to publish the official 2019 Medicare rate notices in the Federal Register on Wednesday. A preview copy of the Part A notice is available here, and a preview copy of the Part B notice is available here.

SOURCE: Bell, A. (16 October 2018) "4 FAQs about 2019 Medicare rates" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitspro.com/2018/10/16/medicare-posts-2019-rates-pinches-high-earners-412/

by 6drachael

Culture is key to attracting younger talent, but you can make it mutually beneficial

According to an article in Harvard Business Review, six in ten millennials are ready to change jobs at any moment, creating a great opportunity for recruitment. Read this blog post to learn how organizations can attract younger talent.

Millennials with jobs are more likely to be looking for a new job than any other generation in the workplace, according to a Harvard Business Review article by Brandon Rigoni and Amy Adkins. They report that six in ten millennials are ready to jump ship at any given time.

This is a challenge for keeping workers, but it’s also a golden opportunity for recruitment. For the most part, these are bright workers who are deconstructing the great American job search.

Firms can seize this opportunity by honing their HR brand to appeal to younger generations and balancing this with assessments that assure a good match with most new hires.

Compensation is still important, but millennials are looking for jobs that are in sync with their values and can help define who they are. Getting hired has become a matter of personal identity.

As an employer, you are being evaluated more than the candidates. How will your firm make the cut? And if you do, will you hire the right people?

Major corporations have overhauled their approach in the scramble for talent.

General Mills began using virtual reality headsets to allow candidates to see themselves working inside General Mills, including using the company’s gym.
Two Volvo engineers recently built a Baja racer for collegiate competitions to attract young engineers to the legacy truck builder.
General Electric’s humorous “What’s the Matter with Owen” television campaign said bupkis about GE products. Instead, Owen touted the company’s geek chic HR brand as a bespectacled new employee being effusive about his job of programming life-changing technology to help people.
McDonald’s eschews traditional media to engage 16 to 24-year-old candidates via Snapchat, offering “Snaplications” and video clips of young McDonald’s employees talking about their jobs.

Not everyone can serve up cold brew coffee in a corporate cafeteria. Still, there are practical steps most firms can take to enhance their HR brand for millennial and Gen Z values.

Does your organization operate with a high degree of transparency? Is it socially responsible? Do employees have paid leave for volunteer work? Are young team members valued and encouraged to contribute to relevant and visible projects and products?

Are there ways to present your products and services to be more relevant and important to society? For example, a textile manufacturer might not actually make exciting products anyone can buy, but its fabrics are used in the space program or to save lives in emergency rooms. Maybe a law firm has a pro bono clinic for low-income families.

Yes. HR needs to make your employer brand attractive to these talented but fickle job seekers, but this doesn’t mean that everyone who’s attracted to your organizational hipness is going to be cool for your company.

There are two tools to make sure both parties get what they want. The first is assessments.

Talent acquisition assessments greatly improve your odds of hiring an individual who is well matched to your company’s needs. The best are scientifically valid and EEOC compliant, focusing on the candidate’s motivation and likely work traits as compared to the job description. You’ll save a lot of money in not having to re-hire for a position.

The second tool is the “Shared Success Model,” which is a process hiring managers can establish that aligns individual development plans with organizational strategies to identify where overlap exists and where there may be gaps.

It has five components:

Individual needs—What is important to the candidate, both professionally and personally? What aligns with their values and interests?
Individual offer—What value does the organization bring to the candidate?
Company needs—What does your organization require for success now and in the future? What do you need from your leaders and employees?
Company offer—What is your corporate value proposition to the candidate? What opportunities do you provide? What culture do you provide?
Plan—Analyze the gaps and overlap between each quadrant. Develop and implement a plan that balances your grid for shared success.

As younger candidates seek more of a cultural match, the Shared Success Model is a good way to make sure the culture you promise is a culture that supports your mission and business model.

SOURCE: Warrick, D. (8 October 2018) "Culture is key to attracting younger talent, but you can make it mutually beneficial" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitspro.com/2018/10/08/culture-is-key-to-attracting-younger-talent-but-yo/

by 6drachael

How to Optimize Open Enrollment for Workers

From the rising cost of prescription medications to the ever-changing status of the ACA, benefit administrators are faced with many challenges when it comes to healthcare programs. Read this blog post to learn more.

Administrators of employer-sponsored healthcare programs face myriad challenges these days, from the rising cost of medications to the fluctuating status of the Affordable Care Act and state healthcare exchanges. As we head into the 2019 open enrollment season, it’s clear that these issues will continue to impact every type and rank of employee in the coming year.

To that end, I’ve outlined several key trends in open enrollment that frazzled HR leaders should explore before enrollment season begins. If it’s too late to make changes to your program this year, use these key points as a basis for measuring and evaluating current programs so you can begin planning for a more engaging, transparent and streamlined process next year.

You don’t have to take it all on yourself.

Employers are realizing that as great as some decision support and health advocacy tools may be, attempts to make employees better healthcare consumers have been only marginally effective. High-performing (aka narrow) networks may be a viable solution as they enable better rates negotiated with the carriers and providers while reducing waste, errors and unnecessary costs. It’s the steerage option, but plan designs can provide incentives for employees to elect these plans and networks. In turn, the HPNs can provide:

more concierge-like service;
better coordinated care between providers for high-cost claimants—where much of runaway costs reside; and
support to ensure compliance with treatment protocols—for chronic conditions such as diabetes, CAD, COPD, etc.

In turn, these plans have the potential for shaving points off healthcare cost trend.

But it’s vital that communication strategies help reduce fears of reduced network choices (avoiding bad memories of restrictive HMO networks) while increasing confidence in the ability of the HPNs to drive results that actually enhance care while also reducing costs.

The best strategy is to provide easy-to-understand examples and scenarios that represent typical situations based on your company’s demographics and employee personas.

Use all the channels you have.

Education and engagement need to be done through a variety of channels to address the specific needs and preferences of demographic groups. Employees need to compare their options based on anticipated needs to look at both premiums (per paycheck costs) and out-of-pocket costs (deductible, copays, coinsurance), as well as employer-provided HSA contributions and incentives. The premium doesn’t tell the whole story—some people over-insure themselves by paying a higher premium for coverage that they may not use because they fear a higher deductible and out-of-pocket maximum.

Cost-comparison tools, interactive personalized assessment tools, microsites that are mobile-optimized with clear, consistent messaging, and extremely brief interactive videos make the message relevant to each individual.

Remember too that your company portal is both a useful tool in ensuring a personalized message to the employee, and a way for you to collect aggregated data about your employees’ interests, needs, action or inaction, and the user experience.

Don’t try to hit all the bases.

Trying to communicate too much information at one time tends to obscure the key message. Focus only on providing information needed to make effective enrollment decisions and use other points during the year to educate about broader topics like wellness.

A common failure is going paperless and forgetting that you really need to drive employees to resources to get them to pay attention. There may be very robust online content and resources but a very low rate of use of that valuable information. Remember that spouses at home often may be making the majority of the healthcare decisions for a family or, at the very least, for themselves. So going too far with the paperless approach can miss getting the message—and the needed information—to those key stakeholders.

Don’t fear transparency.

It’s intriguing to me that some employers are wary about communicating their level of cost-sharing with employees and how it benchmarks against peer companies. Employees often assume they are paying a far larger share than they are. There are other ways of being transparent about cost-sharing beyond the employer-employee split. For instance, we created an infographic for a client to explain the concept of self-insurance and are using it in an ongoing educational series with fact sheets and videos, getting across the idea that the decisions each of us make about our health and informed healthcare purchasing affect the costs in our individual as well as collective pockets.

The bottom line is that helping employees get smart about how they use healthcare and choose insurance options will save your company money. That’s not as callous as it sounds. If employers can’t find more and better ways to control healthcare and benefits costs, they’ll simply have to shift more of the burden to employees. Healthcare access is onerous enough. No one wants to make it harder or deprive workers of needed care. Healthy, satisfied, financially stable workers are better for business, productivity and the overall economy. Commit to exploring these key trends and making meaningful improvements to open enrollment in 2019 and beyond.

SOURCE: Brooks, B. (16 October 2018) "How to Optimize Open Enrollment for Workers" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hrexecutive.com/how-to-optimize-open-enrollment-for-workers/

by 6drachael

5 ways employers can leverage tech during open enrollment

Are you leveraging technology advancements during open enrollment? Advances in technology are creating a more seamless and interactive healthcare experience for employees. Read on for five ways employers can leverage technology during 2019 open enrollment.

Technology continues to reshape how employers select and offer healthcare benefits to employees, putting access to information at our fingertips and creating a more seamless and interactive healthcare experience. At the same time, these advances may help employees become savvier users of healthcare, helping simplify and personalize their journey toward health and, in the process, help curb costs for employers.

The revolution can be important to remember during open enrollment, which occurs during the fall when millions of Americans select or switch their health benefits for 2019. With that in mind, here are five tips employers should be aware of during open enrollment and year-round.

Make sense of big data

Big data is a buzzword, but the applications are only meaningful if employers can make sense of that information. To help with that, employers are gaining access to online resources to help enable them to more easily analyze and make sense of health data, taking into account aggregate medical and prescription claims, demographics, and clinical and well-being information. This can provide an analytics-driven roadmap to help employers implement tailored clinical management and employee engagement programs, which may help improve health outcomes, mitigate expenses and help employees take charge of their health.

Help people understand their options

More than three-quarters (77%) of employees say they are prepared for open enrollment, yet most people struggle to understand basic health insurance terms, according to a recent healthcare benefits company's survey. In fact, only 6% of survey respondents could successfully define all four basic health insurance concepts: plan premium, deductible, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximum. To support employees during open enrollment, employers can adopt online platforms designed to personalize and simplify the experience to help people select a health plan based on their personal health and financial preferences while encouraging them to select a primary care physician and enroll in programs such as smoking cessation or weight loss.

Encourage your people to move more

An estimated 35% of employers now integrate wearable devices into their wellbeing programs, helping employees more accurately understand their daily activity levels. As these programs become more common, there may be opportunities for cost savings for companies and their workforces. For instance, some wearable device wellness programs may enable people to earn more than $1,000 per year by meeting certain daily walking goals, while employers can achieve premium renewal discounts based on the aggregate walking results of their employees.

Offer incentives to employees who comparison shop for care

More than one-third (36%) of Americans say they have used the internet or mobile apps during the last year to comparison shop for healthcare, up from 14% in 2012, according to a healthcare benefits company's survey. To encourage employees to participate in this trend, some employers are offering financial incentives — such as $25 or $50 gift cards — to employees for using healthcare transparency resources. Healthcare quality and cost varies widely within a city or neighborhood, so encouraging the use of online and mobile transparency resources may yield savings for employers and employees.

Integrate medical and ancillary benefits

Open enrollment is also the time for people to select important ancillary benefits, such as vision and dental coverage. While some people may overlook these plans, offering this coverage as part of an employee’s menu of benefits options may maximize the effectiveness of a company’s healthcare dollars, provide families with added peace of mind and help build a culture of health. Combining medical and ancillary benefits under a single health plan may enable for the integrated analysis of a wide range of data that can facilitate proactive outreach and clinical support for employees, including for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes or to help prevent the development of such conditions.

SOURCE: Madsen, R. (12 October 2018) "5 ways employers can leverage tech during open enrollment" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/list/5-ways-employers-can-leverage-tech-during-open-enrollment

by 6drachael

5 things small business owners should know about this year's open enrollment

For small business owners, the benefits they offer are crucial to the way they attract and retain employees. Read this blog post for five things small business owners should know for 2019 open enrollment.