Final mental health parity regulations have arrived
Originally posted December 02, 2013 by Jessica Webb-Ayer on https://hr.blr.com
The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury (Departments) recently released mental health parity final regulations that implement the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA).
The MHPAEA applies to most employers with more than 50 employees and is designed to provide mental health parity by making sure mental health and/or substance use disorder benefits offered by health plans are equivalent to the medical/surgical benefits the plans offer.
The U.S. Congress passed the MHPAEA in October 2008, and in February 2010, the Departments jointly issued interim final regulations to aid employers and group health insurers in implementing the MHPAEA’s requirements. The new final regulations are not a whole lot different from those initial regulations and mainly just provide new clarifications on various issues.
Classification of benefits
The interim final regulations made clear that parity analysis must be conducted on a classification-by-classification basis and divided benefits into the following six classifications:
- Inpatient, in-network;
- Inpatient, out-of-network;
- Outpatient, in-network;
- Outpatient, out-of-network;
- Emergency care; and
- Prescription drugs.
The new final regulations retain those six classifications, but they do allow plans and issuers to divide benefits furnished on an outpatient basis into two sub-classifications:
- Office visits (e.g., physician visits); and
- All other outpatient items and services (e.g., outpatient surgery, facility charges for day treatment centers, laboratory charges, and other medical items).
The final regulations also provide that if a plan (or health insurance coverage) provides in-network benefits through multiple tiers of in-network providers, the plan may divide its benefits furnished on an in-network basis into sub-classifications that reflect those network tiers. However, such tiering must be based on reasonable factors and without regard to whether a provider is a mental health or substance use disorder provider or a medical/surgical provider.
Other clarifications
The mental health parity final regulations also provide other clarifications. For example, they:
- Make minor, technical changes to the meaning of the terms “medical/surgical benefits,” “mental health benefits,” and “substance use disorder benefits;”
- Clarify that a plan or issuer is not required to perform the parity analysis each plan year unless there is a change in plan benefit design, cost-sharing structure, or utilization that would affect a financial requirement or treatment limitation within a classification or sub-classification;
- Remove a specific exception for “recognized clinically appropriate standards of care” regarding nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTLs);
- Add two additional examples of NQTLs: (1) network tier design and (2) restrictions based on geographic location, facility type, provider specialty, and other criteria that limit the scope or duration of benefits for services provided under the plan or coverage;
- Add a new section that addresses claiming an increased cost exemption under the MHPAEA;
- Add more examples throughout the regulations to help plans and issuers understand the provisions.
Effective dates and FAQs
The mental health parity final regulations are effective January 13, 2014, and they apply to group health plans and health insurance issuers for plan years beginning on or after July 1, 2014. Until then, plans and issuers must continue to comply with the interim final regulations.
Along with the new regulations, the Departments also published another set of mental health parity FAQs, which request comments on whether and how to ensure greater transparency and compliance.
Mental Health Parity Resources
- Topic Analysis: Healthcare Insurance
- Benefits Complete Compliance
- Administration to issue long-awaited mental health parity regulations
- Affordable Care Act and mental health: Are employers ready?
- Topic Analysis: Healthcare Benefits
Obesity drives up workers’ comp claims
Originally posted November 21, 2013 by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com
Obese employees make more workers’ comp claims, and they make costlier ones than non-obese employees.
That conclusion was drawn by Lockton Companies based on its review of several independent studies on employees with high health risks (including obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and limited physical activity) and workers’ comp claims.
The Kansas City, Mo., provider of risk management, insurance, and employee benefits consulting services cites three studies that, when taken together, paint a troubling picture, especially of the impact overweight workers can have on workers’ comp claims.
Lockton says that wellness programs, properly designed and implemented, can address this situation by helping obese workers lose weight. But Lockton doesn’t offer any stats on how effective wellness programs are overall in combating obesity.
Still, the studies cited offer food for thought.
The University of Michigan Health Management Research Center studied Xerox Corp. employees and confirmed that “employees with high health risks tended to have the highest workers’ compensation costs.”
Xerox was an early proponent of wellness plans. The UM followed employees for four years and reported that “workers’ compensation costs increased for those employees whose health risks were increasing or high already (e.g., smoking, physical inactivity, hypertension, high cholesterol, and life/job dissatisfaction).”
Lockton also refers to a 2010 study by the National Council on Compensation Insurance which more closely correlated obesity with workers’ comp claims.
The data “showed that workers’ compensation claims that included the obesity comorbidity diagnosis incurred significantly higher medical costs than comparable claims without the high health risk. NCCI also discovered that claims for employees identified
as “obese” almost tripled from 2000 to 2009 from 2.4 percent to 6.6 percent,” Lockton said.
Lockton then cites a more recent NCCI study testing whether “the lost-time duration of obese claimants is a multiple of non-obese claimants.”
It was.
“According to their findings, obese claimants incurred medical costs 6.8 times higher than non-obese (as defined by body mass index), were twice as likely to file a claim and an indemnity duration that averaged about 13 times higher,” Lockton summarized.
What Lockton suggests is that companies take the following steps to empower their wellness plans to really help employees address chronic health issues:
- Proactively engage HR and employee benefits to better understand the scope and breadth of existing corporate wellness initiatives, as well as how the organization is tracking the effectiveness of those programs.
- Determine how your insurer and/or third party administrator is capturing data on comorbid factors in workers’ compensation claim files and how that information can be incorporated into effective analytics.
- Collaborate with internal safety, health, and environment professionals (if applicable) to discover how best to integrate employee wellness with workplace safety.
“Effective corporate wellness initiatives have shown to be successful in not only reducing the duration of lost-time workers' compensation claims,” said Lockton's Michal Gnatek, author of the report, “but also in promoting healthy behaviors that potentially inhibit unsafe or inattentive workplace behavior.
“Risk managers and claims professionals should be adding employee wellness to the available arsenal of weapons to combat increasing claims.”
The benefits part-time employees can offer your business
Originally posted November 26, 2013 by Abiramie Sathiamoorthy and Janelle McKenzie on https://www.smartcompany.com
When you Google the topic of hiring part-time employees some interesting opinions come up. There seems to be a perception out there that part-time employees aren’t as committed as their full-time colleagues based on the number of hours they’re willing to work. This is something that we couldn’t disagree with more!
It’s as if the fact that they work less hours means that they have less to contribute, which is as ridiculous as it sounds. What’s more ridiculous and unfortunate is that some employers actually buy into this theory. There seems to be a big perception versus reality gap here.
To begin with, putting in face-time at the office doesn’t necessarily equate to commitment. How many of you know of that one employee who seems to be busy doing a whole lot of nothing for most of their day? And then how many of you know of that other employee who comes to work and works like a machine for three out of the five days during the week? Who do you think is more committed to their job?
Surely it makes more sense to measure the commitment of an employee based on the quality of their output and their overall performance rather than the number of hours they work.
Part-time workers in actual fact are as productive (and perhaps even more so) than their full-time colleagues because they have less time to get everything they need to get done, done! For them, time is genuinely precious so they really make the most of it.
Lately, the topic of parents, in particular mothers, returning to work has come up quite a bit in our circle of friends and ex-colleagues. This particular demographic make up a large portion of part-time employees in the workforce. Try telling a part-time employee who has a family to take care of that he or she is not as committed to their job as a full-time employee and they’ll probably tell you where to go!
And fair enough. If a parent is going to make the choice to continue working after having a family, then trust us, they’re committed to the job! The decision is never an easy one so making it requires a lot of commitment in itself – the commitment to make sacrifices and accommodations throughout the other facets of their life just so they can continue to work and pursuit their career.
With that in mind, just because an employee chooses to work part-time doesn’t mean that they’re not equally as ambitious and don’t have career goals like every other employee. It’s a shame that they can be so easily overlooked for promotions and/or special projects. For part-time employees it’s just as important to still have those career conversations with your managers and make your career ambitions known. Nothing wrong with still dreaming big!
We’re not saying that it’s always easy to accommodate part-time employees, particularly in roles with greater responsibility, but it can definitely be worth it. Assess the individual like you would any other full-time employee – on their capability and performance rather than the number of hours they can put into the job.
Benefits that part-time employees can bring to a business:
Help manage wage costs: If you have to pay overtime rates to your existing full-time employees, which are often at a much higher rate, hiring a part-time employee to take on the additional workload at an ordinary base rate can help reduce wage costs significantly. Similarly, if the workload of your operations doesn’t necessarily justify a full-time resource, hiring a part-time resource instead is an obvious solution.
Improve the retention of talent: Sometimes, full-time work simply isn’t an option for many workers, including key talent within your business who have to change their hours due to changing circumstances that come up in life e.g. parents who have childcare responsibilities. A lot of great talent can be lost from a business if there aren’t any options for them to continue to work on a part-time basis.
Access to a greater talent pool: We all know how challenging it can be to find the perfect person for a particular recruitment need. Extending your search to a part-time pool of talented candidates can significantly help.
Greater flexibility: Part-time employees allow for your business to have greater flexibility when it comes to meeting the demands associated with peaks in your operations. Being able to schedule part-time workers around your operational needs presents a key advantage to managing your labour.
Don’t believe the hype that part-time employees won’t contribute as much, have less to offer or aren’t as committed to seeing your business succeed. From the part-time workers we’ve been speaking to, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
2013 rise in employer health costs lowest in years
Originally posted November 20, 2013 by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com
Is it the lull before the storm?
Employers, it appears, worked hard to hold down health plan cost increases this year. A Mercer study released Wednesday reported that the increase — just 2.1 percent over last year — was the lowest hike since 1997.
But don’t count on another new low in 2014.
Employers told Mercer they expect health plan costs to jump 5.2 percent next year if they keep on looking for – and finding -- ways to restrain health costs.
If they chucked all those efforts, employers say, the increase next year would be more along the lines of 8 percent.
Let’s not rain on the cost-reduction parade quite so quickly. Employer health costs have been reined in of late, and the efforts should be recognized.
The best performance came from the employer group represented by those with 10 to 499 employees. Their costs nudged up just 1 percent this year over last. Even large employers experienced just a 3.7 percent increase — still lower than the overall 4.1 percent increase in 2012 vs. 2011.
Part of the reduction in cost came from the increasing popularity of high-deductible health plans for employees, the study said. Consumer driven health plans are now entrenched in the workplace and offer savings to employers. As the study said:
“Nationally, enrollment in CDHPs rose from 16 percent of covered employees in 2012 to 18 percent in 2013. This is the same portion that enrolled in HMOs. In the Midwest, CDHP enrollment is now more than double that of HMOs (27 percent compared to 10 percent). CDHPs are an important option for employers looking for a low-cost plan to make extending coverage to additional employees more affordable. The average cost of coverage in a CDHP paired with a tax-advantaged health savings account is 17 percent less percent than coverage in a PPO and 20 percent less than in an HMO.”
Employers also point to wellness plans as contributing to lower costs, although most can’t quantify the contribution.
As Mercer’s Julio A. Portalatin, president and CEO, said, “The good news is that employers have already taken decisive action to slow cost growth so they will be in a better position to handle the challenges ahead. But the impact of the ACA on enrollment levels remains a huge question mark.”
Employers pointed to the uncertainties of the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as drivers for next year’s anticipated uptick.
They expect to be providing coverage for more workers in 2014 as the PPACA kicks in, which will add to their costs. “Next year, because of the individual mandate (contained in the PPACA), it is likely that fewer employees will waive coverage for themselves and more will elect dependent coverage – although the extent of the change is difficult to predict,” the study said.
Tracy Watts, Mercer’s national leader for health reform said “there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to enrollment.”
“A big question is how many employees will enroll for the first time, given that the tax penalty for not obtaining coverage is relatively small. But an employer might wind up covering more dependents if others in the area have made changes to discourage their employees from enrolling dependents,” she said.
Other highlights mined from the Mercer data:
- In 2015 employers, more large employers are going to be required to offer health coverage to workers. Among all large employers, 32 percent say they expect to be affected, while 48 percent of large wholesale/retail companies say they will have to offer coverage.
- Fifty-five percent of respondents said they now include same-sex domestic partners as eligible dependents.
- Twenty-three percent of large employers vary the employee contribution amount based on tobacco-use status or provide other incentives to encourage employees not to use tobacco. That’s up from 19 percent in 2012. Among employers with 20,000 or more employees, 46 percent now use an incentive.
IRS rule allowing flexible spending account carry-overs has pros and cons for employers
Originally posted November 17, 2013 by Jerry Geisel on https://www.businessinsurance.com
Employers have a new option to reduce the likelihood that employees will forfeit contributions to their flexible spending accounts, but companies need to evaluate the pros and cons of the approach before deciding whether to adopt the new “carry-over” design.
The option, which the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department announced last month, allows employees to carry over up to $500 in FSA contributions remaining at the end of a plan year to use in the next plan year.
That is an alternative to the modification of the 1984 IRS use-it-or-lose-it rule, which requires FSA participants to forfeit money remaining in their accounts at the end of a plan year. Under the 2005 modification, employers can establish “grace-period” FSAs that allow employees to roll over the entire unused account balance to pay for expenses incurred during the first 21/2 months of the next plan year before the money is forfeited.
Grace-period FSAs are used by more than 40% of employers that offer an FSA, according to consultant Aon Hewitt.
After a year of examining the issue, federal regulators approved the new carry-over approach. However, employers can use either grace-period or carry-over FSAs, but not both. Employers also can continue to offer standard FSAs in which unspent balances are forfeited at the end of a plan year.
The carry-over approach also does not affect the $2,500 limit on annual FSA contributions imposed by the 2010 health care reform law.
The carry-over approach will cut back on “wasteful year-end FSA health care spending by limiting the risk of forfeiture and, in turn, reducing the incentive to spend down as year-end approaches in order to avoid losing unused funds,” the Treasury Department said in a statement when it unveiled the alternative.
At least some employers are expected to adopt carry-over FSAs.
“We will see some movement” to the carry-over approach, said Nicole Wruck, a senior director and health and welfare practice leader with Aon Hewitt in Lincolnshire, Ill. “It seems like a win for many participants.”
“You won't have this rush to spend at the end of the year. Employees will be more careful about spending” FSA account balances, said Jody Dietel, chief compliance officer for WageWorks Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based FSA administrator.
“My best guess is that employers will feel this approach is an enhancement that employees will welcome,” said Michael Thompson, a principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. in New York.
But others say employees who anticipate major health care expenses early in a plan year, such as orthodontia, could be losers under a carry-over FSA approach.
Andy Anderson, a partner at law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius L.L.P. in Chicago, said with a grace-period FSA, an employee could roll over up to $2,500 and have up to $5,000 to pay major health care expenses early in the next plan year. By contrast, the employee would have a maximum of $3,000 to use in the next plan year under a carry-over FSA.
A potential disadvantage for employers in the carry-over FSA approach is that forfeitures on unused balances could decrease significantly. That could cost employers because many use forfeitures to offset administrative expenses incurred in offering FSA programs, experts say.
“There is likely to be less to offset expenses,” said Jay Savan, a partner with Mercer L.L.C. in Atlanta.
Pending additional regulatory guidance, several unknowns remain involving the interaction of carry-over FSAs and rules affecting contributions to health savings accounts.
Under IRS rules, contributions to HSAs are not allowed when employees are enrolled in general-purpose FSAs. However, when the IRS authorized grace-period FSAs, it said HSA contributions would be allowed during the grace period by converting to a limited-purpose FSA in which balances could be used only to pay for dental, vision and preventive care services.
While consultants say IRS officials have informally said that HSA contributions could be made for individuals with carry-over FSAs — so long as the FSA was amended to be limited purpose — there has been no official guidance.
“The current guidance does not address this, so employers need to tread carefully” said Rich Stover, a principal with Buck Consultants L.L.C. in Secaucus, N.J.
Efforts To Fix Health Care Draw Mixed Reviews
Originally posted November 18, 2013 by Pamela Dockins on https://insurancenewsnet.com
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama is taking steps to correct problems that have plagued his health care reform program since its launch in October. There is debate over whether the president has made enough changes to the program to quell discontent.
The Obama administration says it is working to fix problems with the government's health care website.
Many Americans have been frustrated by the site's technical glitches, which have prevented them from buying health insurance.
This past week, Obama offered a fix to another problem that is causing some Americans to lose their health care policies under his new program. The president said insurance companies could now give these people the option of keeping their old plans for an extra year.
"Now this fix won't solve every problem for every person but it is going to help a lot of people," said the president.
Michael Consedine, the insurance commissioner of Pennsylvania and secretary-treasurer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, said the president's fix could wind up causing confusion. "That fix is a very temporary one and may ultimately cause far greater harm to the insurance marketplace in allowing different products and different policies to continue in a marketplace where we thought there would be a lot more uniformity."
On Friday, the Republican-majority House of Representatives voted to make even more changes. A bill passed with the support of some House Democrats that would allow insurance companies to sell policies that lack all the health care reform mandates and renew customer policies that had been canceled.
The bill's fate in the Senate is uncertain.
Consedine said rapid changes in insurance policies and rates could become problematic at the state level. "We really are feeling like sort of like a ship out on the waves being tossed and turned. The prevailing winds go one direction one day and another the next."
Anne-Marie Slaughter is a former director of policy planning at the State Department and the current head of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute. On VOA's Press Conference USA, she predicted Obama would be able to weather the health care storm.
States to decide which plans are PPACA-compliant
Originally posted November 21, 2013 by Arthur D. Postal on https://www.lifehealthpro.com
States will be the ultimate determinant as to whether they will allow insurers to renew existing health insurances plans in 2014 even though these policies may not comply with the new Affordable Care Act, President Obama and state insurance regulators agreed at a White House meeting last night.
The meeting with several insurance commissioners and Ben Nelson, chief executive officer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, was held as the White House continued itsefforts to smooth the troubled political waters caused by the rocky rollout of the federal exchange that will be used by residents of 36 states to buy individual and small group policies mandated by the law.
The state regulators used the occasion to raise other issues with the president, including their relationship with federal insurance regulators given a voice in insurance regulation left to the states for 150 years. A major issue brought up with the president was the role they want to play in establishing international insurance standards.
As for the healthcare, law, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, everyone must have health insurance by March 31, 2014, or pay a penalty. However, the exchange website unveiled Oct. 1 has proved unequal to its task, and there are questions whether it will be fully up to speed by the end of the month, as promised by the administration.
The inability of people to access the website, plus the realization that the president’s commitment to allow everyone to “keep their existing policies if they like them” contradicts the law’s mandate that each insurance policy must contain certain essential benefits, has generated a major political problem for the president.
These essential benefits include providing insurance to people with pre-existing conditions, free preventative care, maternity coverage and other benefits. Also included is a requirement to provide contraceptives for women.
However, the realization that most existing policies didn’t include such benefits created a major practical problem as insurers notified thousands of affected consumers that their existing policies would be cancelled.
As the meeting was being held, CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield, which serves Maryland, announced that it would allow more than 55,000 policyholders to retain their policies for one year even though the policies don’t contain some of the essential benefits mandated by the new law. CareFirst acted one day after the Maryland insurance commissioner said he would approve such action. Other health insurers in the state said they would also do so; others said they would not.
Other states, like Florida, said they would also allow consumers to keep their existing policies for one year. But, others, like New York, Washington and Indiana, said they would not comply. CaliforniaInsurance Department officials said they would announce their decision today.
At the meeting, the state insurance regulators emphasized their concern that different rules for different policies would be detrimental to the overall insurance marketplace and could result in higher premiums for consumers, without addressing the underlying concern of gaps in coverage. They also emphasized the importance of deferring to the states to protect consumers, and highlighted the track record of effective regulation by insurance departments across the country.
However, they acknowledged that they are just standard-setters, not policymakers and reiterated, as stated by Jim Donelon, NAIC President and Louisiana insurance commissioner, that PPACA is “the law of the land."
“Since the passage of ACA, state regulators have been working to ensure that plans are compliant with the new rules,” Donelon said at the meeting.
He said the proposed changes announced by the president in an executive order last Thursday in response to the uproar over the cancellations and the difficulty consumers are having buying policies on the federal website has creating “a level of uncertainty that we must work together to alleviate.”
Donelon made clear, however that state regulators “share the President’s goal of affordable coverage for consumers, and we will work with the insurance companies in our states to implement changes that make sense while following our mandate of consumer protection.”
Donelon attended the meeting with NAIC Chief Executive Officer Senator Ben Nelson, Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas B. Leonardi, and North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin.
The group discussed practical implications of implementing the delay in enforcement as well as outstanding questions regarding what specific provisions would be impacted, and talked to reporters at length at what was accomplished at the meeting in a conference call afterwards.
Amongst the presidential aides attending the meeting was Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Sebelius and officials of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw development of the website, have been under intense fire because the website has failed because of the huge numbers of people who sought access to it, and because testing designed to prove it worked was not even started until a week or so before the Oct. 1 rollout.
The White House released a statement saying the state regulators had been given full authority as to whether to accept the grandfathering. According to the statement, Obama said that his executive order requires that health plans that offer such renewals provide consumers with clear information about consumer protections lacking in those plans and their options and possible tax credits through the exchanges. The statements said that Obama acknowledged that, “States have different populations with unique needs, and it is up to the insurance commissioner and health insurance companies to decide which insurance products can be offered to existing customers next year.”
Additionally, according to the White House statement, the president emphasized that he wants to hear any ideas that insurance commissioners “may have as implementation continues to ensure that Americans across the country have the information they need to get affordable, quality coverage for themselves and their families.”
8 things employers must do to comply with post-DOMA rules
Originally posted November 21, 2013 by Paula Aven Gladych on https://www.benefitspro.com
Employers need to ensure their retirement plans are in compliance with new rules regarding same-sex marriage.
With the Supreme Court’s decision in June to strike down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act allowing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages and subsequent clarification by the IRS and the Department Labor, many plan sponsors now have to recognize same-sex couples when it comes to retirement benefits.
Only 14 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. But according to new rules which went into effect in mid-September, same-sex couples are entitled to all of the federal rights entitled to opposite sex couples, including workplace benefits —even if the couple resides in a state that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.
According to Laura Pergine and Janet Luxton of Vanguard Strategic Retirement Consulting, there are eight things plan sponsors must do to make sure their retirement plans are in compliance post-DOMA:
1. Review plan documents.Vanguard recommends that plan sponsors sift through plan documents to determine if there is a definition of “spouse.” If a definition is there, they need to make sure it is compliant. The company said that plan sponsors also should review provisions in their documents that refer to domestic partnerships or civil unions.
2. Review marital status when it comes to beneficiary determination. If a plan participant who is legally married to a same-sex spouse dies, but his beneficiary designation is for someone he isn’t married to, that person may not receive the promised benefits unless the same-sex spouse waives his spousal rights.
3. Review qualified domestic relations procedures.Legally married same-sex couples have the same rights and obligations as opposite-sex couples if their marriage is dissolved. Qualified Domestic Relation Order procedures need to be reviewed to make sure there are no gender-specific references. If there are, they should be removed, Vanguard said.
4. Hardship withdrawals for same-sex spouses are now available.Plan sponsors need to follow the same rules regarding hardship withdrawals as those that apply to opposite-sex spouses.
5. Required minimum distributions.Gender-specific references to required minimum distributions in plan documents need to be removed. Spouses have more options regarding the treatment of distributions received as beneficiary payments.
6. Gender-specific references to rollovers in plan documents or distribution forms need to be removed. Spouses have more flexibility than non-spouses in how they treat rollover distributions, according to Vanguard.
7. Gender-specific references should be eliminated from participant communications. Plan sponsors should consider targeted communication to those employees most likely affected by these changes. Same-sex couples should be reminded to update their beneficiary designations.
8. Previous payment/Denial of benefits based on marital status. The IRS plans to issue guidance on whether or not same-sex couples who were denied an annuity benefit prior to the DOMA decision can now receive that benefit because of the Supreme Court decision.
6 reminders for employees before Thanksgiving
Originally posted on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
This Thanksgiving, looking at the mess of the Affordable Care Act’s rollout, your employees might just be most grateful to retain their employer-sponsored health plans, but there’s always plenty to celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November. Between food, travel, and more food this Nov. 28, be sure to mark the occasion well. And from all of us at EBN, enjoy your holiday!
Here are six things to remind your employees before they leave for their Thanksgiving breaks. We look at the most popular travel destinations, as well as some Fodor-recommended ones. Perhaps most important at the workplace: don’t forget to set your out-of-office alerts.
More and more Americans are forgoing mere turkeys for the Frankenstein monsters that are Turduckens: a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, like Russian nesting dolls of poultry. Each November, one store in Louisiana sells more than 5,000 Turduckens, which average 1,600 calories a serving. Human resources administrators probably won’t make many friends by encouraging people to watch what they eat on Thanksgiving of all days, but indulgence shouldn't become a habit if you want to work on your wellness goals.
Did you know Thanksgiving was originally supposed to be a fast, not a feast? The settlers of Plymouth Rock were more likely to “celebrate” with prayer and abstaining from food, but the Wampanoag Indians brought their own harvest festival traditions to the table. So if you need an excuse to under-indulge this holiday, just think to yourself, “I’m only behaving like a pilgrim.”
According to data from Hotwire.com, these are Americans’ biggest destinations next week. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade keeps Manhattan on the top of the list, but be sure to book in advance and allow for extra travel time if you plan on hitting any of the following spots, ranked from No. 1 to 5: New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando and Los Angeles.
According to Fodor’s Erin Gifford, it’s tough to beat a Thanksgiving spent the old fashioned way in Plymouth, Mass., but she has more surprising recommendations as well. In Leiden, Holland, for example, the pilgrims spent 11 years before continuing on to the New World, and local churches and museums always mark turkey day. For something closer to home, Gifford recommends Dana Point, Calif., famous for its 10,000-runner Turkey Trot on a scenic route up the coast.
Thanksgiving time off ranges from merely day-of to more than the entire week, so be sure your staff puts up their voicemail and email out-of-office messages. Be sure to say when you will be back at work and what to do in case of an emergency.
The biggest shopping day of the year immediately follows Thanksgiving, and even if your business doesn't need to prepare, your employees likely do. Holiday shopping gets off with a bang, and experts claim the economy relies on it. Still, it might be a good opportunity to encourage saving – the personal finance website NerdWallet says that more than 90% of 2013 Black Friday ads contain the exact same items and prices as last year. Talk about serving leftovers the day after Thanksgiving!
Offering Benefits Still Gives Employers a Competitive Advantage
Originally posted November 14, 2013 on www6.lexisnexis.com
Employee Benefit Research Institute issued the following news release:
The vast majority of workers say that the benefits package an employer offers x{2015} especially health insurance x{2015} is important to their decision to accept or reject a job, but a quarter are not satisfied with them, according to a new survey.
More than three-quarters of employees state that the benefits package an employer offers prospective employees is extremely (33 percent) or very (45 percent) important in their decision to accept or reject a job, according to the 2013 Health and Voluntary WorkplaceBenefits Survey (WBS), by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald and Associates.
Nevertheless, 31 percent are only somewhat satisfied with the benefits offered by their current employer, and 26 percent are not satisfied.
Workers identify lower cost (compared with purchasing benefits on their own) and choice as strong advantages of voluntarybenefits. However, they are split with respect to their comfort in having their employer choose their benefits provider, and think the possibility that they may have to pay the full cost of any voluntary benefits is a disadvantage.
Workers continue to rank health insurance as the first or second most important benefit provided by employers: 88 percent of employees report that employer-provided health insurance is extremely or very important, far more than for any other workplacebenefit, the WBS found.
"Employee benefits continue to be important to workers," said Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI's Health Research and Education Program and co-author of the report. "Employers that offer a strong employee benefits package should find themselves with a competitive advantage over other companies when it comes to attracting and retaining desirable employees."
As the EBRI report notes, benefits coverage in the workplace, including health insurance, is far from universal. Three-quarters ofemployees (7 6 percent) report their employer offers them health insurance. Two-thirds each indicate they are offered dentalinsurance (67 percent) or a retirement savings plan (66 percent), and more than half say they are offered vision insurance 60 percent), life insurance (58 per cent), and short-term disability insurance (5 5 percent) by their employer. About half are offered long-term disability insurance (49 percent) and accidental death and dismemberment insurance (48 percent).
However, just 38 percent report being offered a traditional pension or defined benefit plan, and only one-quarter (25 percent) are offered long-term care insurance. Fewer report being offered retiree health insurance (22 percent) or other non-core ancillary benefits.
The full report, "Views on the Value of Voluntary Workplace Benefits: Findings from the 2013 Health and Voluntary WorkplaceBenefits Survey," is published in the November EBRI Notes, online at www.ebri.org