News

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights has announced it will be launching phase two of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act audit program. Advisers can help clients prepare by updating policies and procedures, among other steps. HIPAA provides the ability to transfer and continue health insurance coverage for millions […]

By Elizabeth Kay, Compliance & Retention Analyst I have worked with my fair share of companies, both large and small, from companies that are just starting out to those that have been well established for 30 or more years. It has been my experience that most companies, no matter how long they have been in […]

Your company has decided to hire a staffing agency. You sign a contract that states the staffing agency will provide temporary workers to your company. The contract contains legalese reserving your company’s right to exercise limited control like assigning work and setting hours. You tell the staffing agency that your company is open Monday through […]

Here’s a head-scratcher: Why would people buy a health insurance policy that doesn’t cover a number of basic medical services and gets them fined by the federal government? It’s cheaper that way, insist many of the people who are opting to purchase short-term health plans that do not meet the standards for insurance specified by […]

Offering a competitive benefits package can bring many challenges, with increasing costs, changing health care regulations, and an increasingly diverse workforce among them. More employers are turning to voluntary benefits as an option to meet those challenges, but which benefit should they offer? The criteria companies use for choosing voluntary benefits need not differ much from […]

The District Court for the Southern District of New York recently turned down a motion to dismiss from the national restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s in a case where a group of employees sued the company for allegedly cutting employee hours to less than 30 hours/week to avoid offering health insurance under the Affordable Care […]

By David Katz “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The great Oz has spoken.” Invoking scenes from the Wizard of Oz, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez and the Department of Labor unveiled last week the finished product of its highly-anticipated union “persuader” rule, requiring employers and their advisers to report […]

6 tips for conducting exit interviews. Exit interviews may be an untapped source of information for benefit managers to analyze and make changes to programs that may be underperforming or in need of revamping to be better used. Listening A little more than 60% of employers say they heed employees’ parting words from exit interviews, […]

United Healthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, has a novel idea to cut costs: Give people more stuff for free. The company has set up a subsidiary firm, Harken Health, that gives its members access to unlimited primary care services. Beyond visits to the doctor’s office, members have access to a 24-hour help line, a […]

Negotiating the compliance landscape for controlled and affiliated service groups was always a difficult task for benefit advisers and their corporate clients. Now the Affordable Care Act has made it even more challenging.   Although large corporations are accustomed to intricate benefit rules, including those pertaining to the shared responsibilities of related businesses, the ACA […]