HIPAA Special Enrollment Events are a subset of the Section 125 Election Change Events that provide special enrollment rights. But, unlike Section 125, HIPAA’s events are only about enrolling in your group health plan, not dis-enrolling. HIPAA requires group health plans to provide special enrollment opportunities outside the plan's regular enrollment periods in certain [...]
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which stated that there is not a constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy. Employers are now faced with the task of determining how this decision will impact their workforce and their benefit offerings. Self-Insured Plans — as a self-insured [...]
Late last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) mandating employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly. Immediately after the Sixth Circuit ruled on Friday, several of the many plaintiffs who had challenged OSHA’s ETS asked the Supreme Court to intervene as part of its “emergency” docket. Appeals from the Sixth Circuit [...]
With student loan debt topping the list of concerns for so many young workers, more and more employers are looking for ways to help. While several large employers are doing things to help them reduce principal and save on interest, one large employer is allowing employees to trade up to 5 vacation days for a [...]
For the first time in years, Americans took more time off from work in 2017. A survey of 4,400 workers conducted by the travel industry showed that on average, 17.2 days of vacation were used last year. This was more than a full day greater than in 2014. While more vacation time was enjoyed, work [...]
This article appeared on Kaiser Family Foundation on September 19, 2017. Employer-sponsored insurance covers over half of the nonelderly population; approximately 151 million non-elderly people in total.1 To provide current information about employer-sponsored health benefits, the Kaiser Family Foundation (Kaiser) and the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) conduct an annual survey of private and [...]
The article below was published on October 17, 2017 by BenefitsPRO, written by Alan Goforth. Photo source: BenefitsPRO Benefits professionals have been on a roller-coaster ride since the 2016 presidential election. That ride includes the highs of lofty rhetoric, the lows of as-yet unfulfilled promises, and uncertainty about what may lie around the [...]
The article below was published on June 18, 2017 by Employee Benefit News, written by Brian M. Kalish. Image Source: benefitnews.com Introduction Despite the uncertain future of the Affordable Care Act and pending replacement legislation, clients should continue finalizing their 2018 health and benefit offerings, contribution strategies, vendor terms, plan operations and employee [...]
The below article is from Employee Benefit News, written by Andrew Brickman, on April 11, 2017. I remember an old advertising line from a discount retailer that said, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” The discounter was promoting the idea that customers who understand the true cost and value of products are loyal and [...]
NAHU is very concerned about current proposals in Congress that would undermine the employer-sponsored health insurance system by eliminating or placing a cap on the employer-tax exclusion for health insurance. Eliminating the exclusion would also eliminate most of the advantages of employer-sponsored insurance while capping it would degrade the benefit and serve as a tax [...]
