More on the EEOC and Wellness Programs
Source: ThinkHR.com
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) recent litigation against employers over incentives granted to employees participating in wellness programs may be a concern for other employers. Specifically, the EEOC has asserted that the size of the incentive that is lost by employees that refuse to participate could render an employer’s wellness program “involuntary” and in conflict with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our recent blog post on this issue highlights the concern.
The EEOC’s action raises issues that have confused employers and benefit advisors for many years: What types of wellness program rewards or penalties are acceptable under the ADA? Will programs that comply with other federal laws for employer-sponsored health plans avoid claims of discrimination under the ADA?
The ADA generally prohibits employers from requiring employees to answer disability-related questions or to undergo medical exams (except certain health/safety exams in specific professions or industries). The EEOC, which regulates various ADA provisions, has confirmed that employers may conduct health assessments or exams as part of a voluntary wellness program without violating the ADA. Medical records must be kept confidential and separate from personnel records.
While the EEOC has not published clear guidance as to the meaning of “voluntary” participation, the need for clarification is apparent. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), has long permitted health plans to make wellness rewards (incentives or penalties) up to certain limits — those limits were increased under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) starting in 2014. These ACA limits may inform strategy on employer implementation of incentives to promote participation in wellness programs.
Penalties and Rewards
The ADA speaks of penalties, but in the vernacular of the ACA, the term “reward” refers both to an incentive payment or a penalty surcharge. Further, the ACA categorizes wellness programs as either “participatory” or “health-contingent” and applies different rules for each category.
Participatory programs do not depend on health status and no specific health outcome is required. For example, a program that rewards all employees that complete a health risk assessment, without regard to the results, is a participatory program. A health-contingent program is one that offers the reward only to employees that either meet an initial health standard (such as satisfactory biometric screenings) or do not meet the initial standard but meet a reasonable alternative standard (such as attending an educational program).
Starting with 2014 plan years, the maximum allowable reward (incentive or penalty) in a health-contingent wellness program under the ACA is 30 percent of the health plan cost, or 50 percent if the program is designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use. (Health plan cost generally is the COBRA rate minus the 2 percent administrative fee.) If the program is merely participatory, however, there is no limit under the ACA for the amount of reward an employer can give an employee.
Regardless of the ACA provisions for wellness programs, the EEOC presently believes that compliance with the ADA prevents employers from offering rewards amounting to steep or enormous penalties — even in a participatory-only program. In its recent case, the EEOC cites the difference between employees paying 25 percent versus 100 percent of the cost for health insurance based on whether they participated in a wellness program as an “enormous penalty.”
Considering the EEOC’s public comments endorsing voluntary wellness programs, and that their enforcement activity is focused on programs imposing penalties that they describe as enormous or steep, it appears likely the use of wellness program incentives will continue to be permitted. However, compliance with the reward limits and reasonable alternatives required under the ACA needs to be complimented with awareness of the EEOC’s concern over excessive penalties. Formal guidance from the EEOC is still pending.
For more information about wellness programs under the ACA, read the Final Rule.
IRS Announces 2015 Retirement Plan Contribution Limits
Source: ThinkHR.com
On October 23, 2014 the Treasury Department announced cost-of-living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and retirement accounts for tax year 2015. The following is a summary of the changes that impact employees:
401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans and the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plans
- The elective deferral (contribution) limit increased from $17,500 to $18,000.
- The catch-up contribution limit for employees aged 50 and over who participate in these plans increased from $5,500 to $6,000.
Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
- The limit on annual contributions remains unchanged at $5,500.
- The additional catch-up contribution limit for individuals aged 50 and over is not subject to an annual cost-of-living adjustment and remains $1,000.
Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRAs and Individual/Solo 401(k)s
- Elective deferrals increase from $52,000 in 2014 to $53,000 in 2015, based on an increased annual compensation limit of $265,000, up from $260,000 in 2014.
- The minimum compensation that may be required for participation in a SEP increases from $550 in 2014 to $600 in 2015.
SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees) IRAs
- The contribution limit on SIMPLE IRA retirement accounts for 2015 is $12,500, up from $12,000 in 2014.
- The SIMPLE catch-up limit is $3,000, up from $2,500 in 2014.
Defined Benefit Plans
- The basic limitation on the annual benefits under a defined benefit plan is unchanged at $210,000.
Other Changes
- Highly-compensated and key employee thresholds: The threshold for determining “highly compensated employees” increases from $115,000 to $120,000 in 2015; the threshold for officers who are “key employees” remains at $170,000 for 2015.
- Social Security Cost of Living Announcement: In a separate announcement, the Social Security Administration increased the Taxable Wage Base from $117,000 in 2014 to $118,500.
- The maximum “Old Age, Survivor and Disability Insurance” (OASDI) tax will be $7,347 for both employers and employees; and
- Hospitalization Insurance (Medicare) tax continues to apply to all wages.
The IRS pension plan limits announcement with more details is available here.
The Social Security Administration Fact Sheet outlining the 2015 changes can be found here.
Too Many Choices?
Source: ThinkHR.com
Some of the earliest investment advice given: “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” Its value is enduring. An investor can minimize the risk of losing money by diversifying the allocation of money into different categories of investments. Even within a single category, an investor can choose investment vehicles, such as mutual funds, spreading ownership over an array of financial instruments. Are plan sponsors successful if they offer participants the highest possible amount of mutual funds and other investment choices?
Offering a large number of funds does not equate to success in either the realm of compliance with regulation, nor in achieving maximum levels of employee participation. It is important to offer the appropriate number of choices to empower participants to meet goals for retirement income. It is also important to do this in a manner that allows the employer to meet fiduciary responsibilities.
Fiduciary Responsibility
On one hand, participant-directed accounts, such as many 401(k) plans, give members control over their own investment accounts. On the other hand, the plan sponsor is generally still responsible for the fiduciary liability associated with selecting and monitoring the investment vehicles being made available to participants. Good processes with solid documentation of their application provide the foundation, enabling employees to make good decisions about investments. These factors also position the employer to face an Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) audit without undo fear of negative consequences. Most employers will need to engage the services of a “prudent expert” as a guide along the path of selecting and monitoring appropriate investment opportunities.
A prudent expert financial advisor must be familiar with methods required to deliver comprehensive analysis of investment vehicles. Among these methods is the necessity to establish and track appropriate benchmarks to measure a particular investment’s performance over time. Understanding the purpose of a particular class of investments and how the particular fund being offered relates to its peers is more important than offering a large number of funds in that class.
Sponsors need to maintain an Investment Policy Statement outlining the categories of investments to be offered to participants. This document should also identify the committee and entities responsible for choosing, monitoring, and, when appropriate, replacing the individual investment options offered to participants. This tool will assist the sponsor in seeing when it is appropriate to replace an option instead of just adding new options. Beyond concerns about managing an employer’s exposure to liability, providing a reasonable, yet limited, choice of options can actually improve employees’ willingness to participate in the benefit plan.
Participant Behavior
Fewer choices are better when people do not come into a situation already knowing for sure what they prefer. This describes most employees in their relationship to employee benefit plans. They simply do not know what to do without education. Initially, it may seem logical to grant the widest possible range of options. If surveyed, employees may even indicate a strong preference for unlimited choices. However, the employer’s goal is not to merely capture interest — the goal is to make it easy for employees to participate in a benefit plan and see progress towards fulfillment of their own financial objectives.
The opportunity to make some choices is a good thing for participants. Indeed, it is necessary for employees with participant-directed accounts to be offered options so that they can achieve diversification of their investments. However, too much of a good thing is manifest when participants experience choice overload.
Behavioral scientists are finding choice overload to be a condition people experience when they withdraw from a situation out of fear of making the wrong decision. Often an individual starts off highly motivated as they begin to examine the choices they have been presented. As choice overload sets in, the extensive array of choices becomes demotivating, and the individual may put off a decision to commit or give up entirely.
Sheena S. Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark R. Lepper of Stanford University demonstrated the impact of choice overload when they studied the influence of choice on the purchasing habits of 502 people who were introduced to various selections of exotic jams. They found that 60 percent of the people given the opportunity to choose from 24 items were interested in investigating, but only 3 percent made a purchase. By contrast, only 40 percent of those given the limited choice of 6 items investigated, but 30 percent made a purchase. The average quantities of jam individuals were willing to taste test was less than 2, regardless of whether they were offered an array of 6 or 24.
Employers can promote participation in benefit plans by reducing the complexity of presentations to employees. Making use of competent advisors, employers can present employees with properly labelled choices packaged in a consumer-friendly manner.
Ohio Employment Law Alert – October 2014
Source: ThinkHR.com
Minimum Wage Increase
On September 29, 2014, the Ohio Department of Commerce announced that the state minimum wage will increase to $8.10 on January 1, 2015, for non-tipped employees and to $4.05 per hour for tipped employees. The increased minimum wage will apply to employees of businesses that have annual gross receipts of more than $297,000 per year.
For employees at smaller companies (with annual gross receipts of $292,000 or less per year in 2014 or $297,000 or less per year after January 1, 2015) and for 14- and 15-year-old workers, the state minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. For these employees, the state minimum wage is tied to the federal minimum wage.
Read the Department of Commerce News Release
View the 2015 Minimum Wage Poster
Federal Employment Law Update – October 2014
Source: ThinkHR.com
FAQs about Affordable Care Act Implementation Part XXI
On October 10, 2014, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury jointly released FAQs about Affordable Care Implementation (Part XXI). The FAQS update prior guidance on cost-sharing limitations for plans using “reference-based pricing.”
The new FAQS set forth specific factors the departments will consider when evaluating whether a non-grandfathered plan that utilizes reference-based pricing (or similar network design) is using a reasonable method to ensure that it provides adequate access to quality providers at the reference-based price.
IRS – 2015 Per Diem Rates for Travel Expense Reimbursements
On October 6, 2014, the IRS released Notice 2014-57. This annual notice provides the 2014-2015 special per diem rates for taxpayers to use to substantiate ordinary and necessary business expenses incurred while traveling away from home, specifically:
- The special transportation industry meal and incidental expenses rates (M&IE).
- The rate for the incidental expenses only deduction.
- The rates and list of high-cost localities for purposes of the high-low substantiation method. Taxpayers using the rates and list of high-cost localities provided must comply with Rev. Proc. 2011-47, I.R.B. 2011-42, 520.
Transportation industry rates
The special M&IE rates for taxpayers in the transportation industry are $59 for any locality of travel in the continental United States (CONUS) and $65 for any locality of travel outside the continental United States (OCONUS).
Incidental expense only rate
The rate for any CONUS or OCONUS locality of travel for the incidental expenses only deduction is $5 per day.
High-low substantiation method
For purposes of the high-low substantiation method, the per diem rates are $259 for travel to any high-cost locality and $172 for travel to any other locality within CONUS. The amount of the $259 high rate and $172 low rate that is treated as paid for meals is $65 for travel to any high-cost locality and $52 for travel to any other locality within CONUS. The per diem rates in lieu of the meal and incidental expenses only substantiation method are $65 for travel to any high-cost locality and $52 for travel to any other locality within CONUS.
High-cost localities changes
San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and San Jose, California; Glendive and Sidney, Montana; and Williston, North Dakota, have been added to the list of high-cost localities appearing in Notice 2013-65, I.R.B. 2013-44, 440. The portion of the year in which they are high-cost localities has changed for Sedona, Arizona; Napa, California; Vail, Colorado; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Miami, Florida; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The following localities have been removed from the list of high-cost localities: Yosemite National Park, California; San Diego, California; and Floral Park, Garden City, and Great Neck, New York.
Effective date
The guidance is effective for per diem allowances for lodging, meal and incidental expenses, or for meal and incidental expenses only that are paid to any employee on or after October 1, 2014, for travel away from home on or after October 1, 2014. For purposes of computing the amount allowable as a deduction for travel away from home, this guidance is effective for meal and incidental expenses or for incidental expenses only paid or incurred on or after October 1, 2014.
Read IRS Notice 2014-57
Executive Order 13658 – Final Rule
On February 12, 2014, President Obama signed Executive Order 13658, Establishing a Minimum Wage for Contractors, to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for all workers on federal construction and service contracts. The Executive Order directed the Department of Labor to issue regulations to implement the new federal contractor minimum wage.
On October 1, 2014, the department announced a Final Rule implementing the provisions of Executive Order 13658. Key provisions of the final rule include:
- It defines key terms used in the Executive Order, including contracts, contract-like instruments, and concessions contracts.
- It provides guidance for contractors on their obligations under the Executive Order.
- It establishes an enforcement process that should be familiar to most government contractors and will protect the right of workers to receive the new $10.10 minimum wage.
- It confirms that approximately 200,000 workers will benefit from the Executive Order.
Executive Order 13658 applies to new contracts and replacements for expiring contracts with the federal government that result from solicitations issued on or after January 1, 2015, or to contracts that are awarded outside the solicitation process on or after January 1, 2015.
The Final Rule will be published in the October 7, 2014 Federal Register.
Read the Final Rule
Read the Fact Sheet on the Final Rule
Read the FAQS on the Final Rule
Health Care Law to Cut Deficit, Says Budget Office
Copyright 2012 ProQuest Information and Learning
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2012 Morning Sentinel
Morning Sentinel (Waterville, Maine)
BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR AND ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's health care overhaul will shrink rather than increase the nation's huge federal deficits over the next decade, Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeepers said Tuesday, supporting Obama's contention in a major election-year dispute with Republicans.
About 3 million fewer uninsured people will gain health coverage because of last month's Supreme Court ruling granting states more leeway, and that will cut the federal costs by $84 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said in the biggest changes from earlier estimates.
Republicans have insisted that Obamacare will actually raise deficits -- by "trillions," according to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But that's not so, the budget office said.
The office gave no updated estimate for total deficit reductions from the law, approved by Congress and signed by Obama in 2010. But it did estimate that Republican legislation to repeal the overhaul -- passed recently by the House -- would itself boost the deficit by $109 billion from 2013 to 2022.
"Repealing the (health care law) will lead to an increase in budget deficits over the coming decade, though a smaller one than previously reported," budget office director Douglas Elmendorf said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
The law's mix of spending cuts and tax increases would more than offset new spending to cover uninsured people, Elmendorf explained.
Tuesday's budget projections were the first since the Supreme Court upheld most of the law last month but gave states the option of rejecting a planned expansion of Medicaid for their low-income residents. As a consequence, the budget office said the law will cover fewer uninsured people.
Thirty million uninsured people will be covered by 2022, or about 3 million fewer than projected this spring before the court ruling, the report said.
As a result, taxpayers will save about $84 billion from 2012 to 2022. That brings the total cost of expanding coverage down to $1.2 trillion, from about $1.3 trillion in the previous estimate.
The Congressional Budget Office has consistently projected that Obama's overhaul will reduce the deficit, although previous estimates aren't strictly comparable with Tuesday's report because of changes in the law and other factors.
At the time it was approved in 2010, CBO estimated the law would reduce the deficit by $143 billion from 2010 to 2019. And CBO estimated that last year's Republican repeal legislation would increase deficits by $210 billion from 2010 to 2021.
That may sound like a lot of money, but it's actually a hair-thin margin at a time when federal deficits are expected to average around $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future.
When the law is fully in effect, 92 percent of citizens and legal residents are estimated to have coverage, as compared to 81 percent now.
Democrats hailed Tuesday's estimates as vindication for the president. "This confirms what we've been saying all along: theAffordable Care Act saves lots of money," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Actually, the government will spend more. It just won't go onto the national credit card because the health care law will be paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
GOP leaders sought to shift attention from claims about the deficit and focused instead on the additional spending. "What we know from today's CBO report ... is that the new health care law is dramatically increasing health care spending and costs," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Republicans said they remain unswervingly committed to repealing what they dismiss as Obamacare. When combined with other budget-cutting measures, GOP leaders say that repeal will ultimately reduce deficits. Romney says if elected he will begin to dismantle the law his first day in office.
Medicaid has been one big question hanging over the future of Obama's law since the Supreme Court ruled.
Some GOP-led states, such as Texas and Florida, say they will not go forward with the expansion. Others are uncommitted, awaiting the voters' verdict on Obama in November.
Although the federal government would bear all of the initial cost of that expansion, many states would have to open their Medicaid programs to low-income childless adults for the first time.
CBO analysts did not try to predict which specific states would jump in and which would turn down the Medicaid expansion. Instead, they assumed that many states would eventually cut deals with the federal government to expand their programs to some degree.
As a result, the budget office estimates that more than 80 percent of the low-income uninsured people eligible under the law live in states that partially or fully expand their programs.
The big coverage expansion under the law doesn't start until 2014, with middle-class uninsured people signing up for subsidized private plans and more low-income people picked up through Medicaid.
HEALTH CARE LAW SAVES $3.9 BILLION ON PRESCRIPTION DRUGS FOR PEOPLE WITH MEDICARE IN 2012 ALONE
States News Service
Source: Lexis Nexis
BALTIMORE, MD
The following information was released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services:
As a result of the Affordable Care Act, over 5.2 million seniors and people with disabilities have saved over $3.9 billion on prescription drugs since the law was enacted. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also released data today showing that in the first half of 2012, over 1 million people with Medicare saved a total of $687 million on prescription drugs in donut hole coverage gap for an average of $629 in savings this year.
Millions of people with Medicare have been paying less for prescription drugs thanks to the health care law, said CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. Seniors and people with disabilities have already saved close to $4 billion. In 2020, the donut hole will be closed thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
These savings are automatically applied to prescription drugs that people with Medicare purchase, after they hit the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage gap or donut hole. Since the law was enacted, seniors and people with disabilities have had several opportunities to save on prescription drugs:
In 2010, people with Medicare who hit the donut hole received a one-time $250 rebate. These rebates totaled $946 million for 2010;
In 2011, people with Medicare began receiving a 50 percent discount on covered brand name drugs and 7 percent coverage of generic drugs in the donut hole. Last year, these discounts totaled over $2.3 billion in savings;
This year, Medicare coverage for generic drugs in the coverage gap has risen to 14 percent. For the first six months of the year, people with Medicare have saved $687 million.
Coverage for both brand name and generic drugs in the gap will continue to increase over time until 2020, when the coverage gap will be closed.
Employers Lack Confidence in PPACA Understanding
By Rebecca Moore
Source: PLANSPONSOR
Just 40 percent of HR decision makers from large organizations are very confident about their understanding of employer requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to an ADP Research Institute survey.
Even fewer respondents in small companies (20 percent) and midsized companies (17 percent) expressed that same level of confidence.
Worries Grow as Health Care Companies Send Jobs Overseas
Don Lee, Tribune Washington Bureau
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
WASHINGTON -- After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some health care companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines.
Some of the jobs being sent abroad include so-called pre-service nursing, where nurses at insurance companies, for example, help assess patient needs and determine treatment methods.
Outsourcing such tasks goes beyond earlier steps by health care companies to farm out reading of X-rays and other diagnostic tests to health professionals overseas. Those previous efforts were often done out of necessity, to meet overnight demands, for instance.
But the latest outsourcing, which has contributed to the loss of hundreds of domestic health jobs, is done for financial reasons. And the outsourcing of nursing functions, in particular, may be the most novel - and possibly the most risky - of the jobs being shifted.
At the forefront of the trend is WellPoint Inc., one of the nation's largest health insurers and owner of Anthem Blue Cross, California's biggest for-profit medical insurer.
In 2010, WellPoint formed a separate business unit, Radiant Services, aimed at advancing outsourcing and other cost-saving strategies. WellPoint has eliminated hundreds of jobs in the U.S. over the last 18 months as it has moved jobs overseas, a company spokeswoman acknowledged.
The spokeswoman, Kristin Binns, said WellPoint's shifting of clinical jobs overseas was a small part of the outsourcing and being done through Radiant because it has the technical expertise and can ensure compliance with laws.
Nursing organizations, however, were cautious.
"It's obviously a very disturbing trend," said Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Assn. "There are serious questions if you're talking about utilization reviews ... and making recommendations on procedures."
Nursing experts said there also may be licensing issues as states generally require certification for those practicing and dispensing health information.
Current and former Radiant executives declined to comment or weren't available.
It's not clear how many other U.S. health care companies have contracted with Radiant or other outsourcing specialists, but industry experts said companies were increasingly looking at more healthcare tasks that could be outsourced globally as they face greater cost pressures and sweeping changes in how they do business.
Aetna Inc. has an arrangement with EXL Service, a U.S.-based company with operations in Manila, to provide "targeted care-management support," spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said.
Health Net Inc., which is laying off dozens of information technology and accounting workers whose jobs are being sent to India, said its outsourcing has generally been confined to administrative and IT functions. UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurer, didn't respond to inquiries.
Outsourcing jobs out of the country has become a hot issue in the presidential campaign: President Barack Obama is pounding Republican challenger Mitt Romney for his private equity company's involvement with companies that sent jobs abroad.
Although such outsourcing has been going on for years, American manufacturers in recent years have brought some jobs back to the U.S. as labor costs have risen in China and elsewhere.
Some experts argued that sending jobs abroad could help U.S. companies by enabling them to tap global talent and efficiencies, making them more profitable. When U.S. companies are stronger, the thinking goes, it creates more opportunities for Americanworkers. Also, shifting operations to lower-wage countries can help consumers by holding down prices.
Outsourcing jobs to places such as the Philippines can save U.S. health care companies 30 percent in labor costs, according to experts. But the practice remains controversial, especially with the U.S. unemployment rate hovering above 8 percent.
Patient advocates worry about crucial decisions involving a patient's care being in the hands of foreign insurance adjusters. Analysts said there was another concern as well: patient privacy.
Even something as straightforward as medical transcription can raise questions, said Uwe Reinhardt, a healthcare economist at Princeton University. Over the last year, Iowa Health System and hospitals in Utah and Washington state have joined other medical centers that have outsourced the transcribing of doctors' notes and other records.
"Suppose I'm an AIDS patient," Reinhardt said. "That person in India would know - and (the information) could be valuable to someone.... For the U.S., there's nothing more personal than health care."
Dr. Kaveh Safavi, head of the North American health practice for Accenture, a major consulting and outsourcing company that has partnered with WellPoint's Radiant, said nearly all countries have laws for protecting patient privacy.
And to safeguard patients' records, he said, heath care companies store and maintain their records locally.
As for outsourcing services that are more clinical in nature, he said, "People are looking at all the tasks that can safely and responsibly be moved. It's still an emerging market. We're still trying to understand the market's tolerance for it."
In general, hospitals are moving more slowly than health insurers to send jobs overseas. But with financial pressures intensifying and the uptake of electronic record-keeping accelerating, analysts and industry people see more consolidation and outsourcing ahead.
"When you have people's medical, billing and other records kept electronically, then it opens it up to establishing a call center virtually anywhere," said Steve Trossman, a Los Angeles spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, which represents hospital workers. "There is no longer a reason for it to be physically in the same place as the paper records."
Moreover, the health care reform law could prod insurers to move more jobs to cheaper-wage countries. The new law requires companies to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of premiums on medical care, limiting the amount available for administrative expenses.
Few have been as aggressive as WellPoint, which made a profit of $2.65 billion last year on revenue of $60.7 billion. WellPoint's total employment at the end of last year was 37,700, down from 40,500 two years earlier.
In one of its recent efforts, WellPoint laid off pre-service nurses in Colorado and Nevada so the work could be done in Manila, according to a Labor Department filing by a WellPoint human resource manager in Denver. WellPoint spokeswoman Binns said none of the decisions that involve denial of procedures or treatment for patients is made overseas.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
Overall, Binns said, fewer than 2.5 percent of the 37,000 employees, or at most 925 workers, had lost jobs in the last 18 months as a result of work sent overseas. Only about 50 of those positions involved clinical management of care, she said.
WellPoint's "sourcing strategies have enabled us to make our services more effective, accessible and affordable to our customers, while allowing us to expand our programs and maintain our service levels," she said.
WellPoint's offshoring covers a wide range of departments and tasks involving claims, enrollment, billing, post-service clinical claims review, utilization management and pre-service nursing, according to filings made by company managers and state government officials. Both were helping secure federal trade-assistance benefits for WellPoint workers who have lost jobs because of outsourcing or import competition.
Shannon Cunningham of Columbus, Ohio, who processed medical claims for WellPoint, was laid off last month after a colleague went to the Philippines to train people to do her job.
Cunningham, 43, said she received eight weeks of severance pay. She and others working in medical claims earned $30,000 to $40,000 a year with health benefits, she said.
"I know other countries need work," said Cunningham, a company employee for three years. But "I just felt like it wasn't fair. We're having a rough time too."
OUTMATCHED
Fewer employers are offering a company match to their retirement benefits, a new study by the Society for Human Resource Management finds. About two-thirds of companies currently match their employees' contributions today, compared with 75 percent in 2008.