Early this month, the DOL issued the model notices to be used for the COBRA subsidy that is part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). In addition, the EBSA has issued FAQs that address some of the outstanding items surrounding the subsidy. This initial guidance does not include details on administering the employer tax credit [...]
This article was published on September 21, 2020 on Hartford Business. Photo source is Hartford Business Journal. 1st Place | Category: 2 to 99 Employees Diversified Group Brokerage Headquarters: Marlborough Industry: Health insurance Top Executive: Brooks T. Goodison, President When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Diversified Group to work remotely, the third-party health plan administrator wanted [...]
This article was published on August 30, 2019 on the HR Daily Advisor written by Eileen Clark, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, ELAP Services. Large employers currently pay about $500 more in healthcare costs per employee than they did just a year ago—money every company would love to have back. With healthcare costs increasing yearly, many [...]
A fee-based model that gives individuals unlimited access to a primary care physician without their insurance being billed is being heralded as the right prescription for healthcare. Most patient needs, such as consulting, tests, drugs and treatment are included, and no insurance billing is involved. Sources estimate there are about 1,000 direct primary care practices [...]
If your plan isn’t managing eligibility at enrollment, you’re probably throwing money away! Managing eligibility in a self-funded environment can place a big burden on HR Directors, not only at enrollment, but throughout the year. Employee benefit elections, dependents and beneficiaries must be monitored consistently and then there are new hires and terminations to deal [...]
Can the cost of a hip replacement in Philadelphia really vary from $11,000 to $125,000? From white papers to published books, much has been written about how difficult it can be to find out what a hospital stay or outpatient procedure will cost. And as Anna Wilde Mathews observed in her article Lifting the Veil [...]
Over the past several months, the Trump administration has introduced several ideas intended to fight skyrocketing prescription drug prices – everything from forcing manufacturers to display prices in their television commercials to having Medicare base payments for costly drugs on average prices in other industrialized nations, which are much lower than in the U.S. While [...]
This article was published on September 10, 2018 on BenefitsPro, written by Darick Bradford. Why are more small businesses offering self-funded health benefit plans? I see three big reasons. Source: BenefitsPro “Wait, what’s a self-funded plan again? And why does it make sense for my clients?” These are questions I hear from brokers [...]
This article was published on August 7, 2018 on Employee Benefit News, written by Corte Larossi. We all know that making changes to your health plan can have major consequences for your company. It can impact your medical costs and company bottom line, the health and welfare of your employees, employee satisfaction and performance, as [...]
From a drug manufacturer that contributes money to a non-profit Copay Assistance foundation and then steers Medicare patients taking their drugs to that foundation to a diagnostic lab that pays doctors for every blood test they refer, disguising the payments as “processing and handling fees”, there seems to be no end to the costly schemes [...]
