Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Only self-insured plans that completely self-administer claims payments and plan operations will avoid paying onerous transitional reinsurance fees. If a self-insured health plan does no more than determine eligibility, it will have to pay, according to Jeffrey Endick, an attorney with Slevin & Hart in Washington D.C. An exception exists to the onerous fee $63 per-member-per-year fee: Self-insured […]
Most every company is looking at the HRIS. What should your system be doing? For some guidance on this trend, we turned to BLR’s recently published HR Playbook: HR’s Gameplan for the Future.
If a pharmacy benefits manager promises a group health plan that there will be no administrative fee for drugs, it actually could be a red flag and not a cause for celebration. It could mean the PBM is “gaming the spread” or not passing rebates through to the plan. Plans can prevent this kind of […]
It’s not uncommon for me to say, “I’d rather hire someone who will ask for forgiveness than someone who must ask for permission before taking action.” If you’re going to accomplish anything in life, you must be willing to act. And when you do, things don’t always turn out exactly as you would like. Sometimes […]
Retirement plan sponsors that have agreements with service providers should be aware of a recent appellate court decision that absolved such providers of fiduciary duty — if a plan trustee exercised final control over the terms of their agreement. Background In Santomenno v. John Hancock Life Insurance Co., 2014 WL 4783665 (3rd Cir. Sept. 26, […]
A federal district court gave preliminary approval to a $1 million settlement agreement that would resolve a class action lawsuit alleging that an employer/plan administrator, in farming out its employees to clients, violated COBRA’s initial and election notice rules, as well as its premium subsidy rules. The settlement would consist of a $375,000 payout to […]
In another case of workers’ compensation gone wrong, a longshoreman was temporarily awarded workers’ comp for tripping over a safety cone, until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals intervened and uncovered the truth.
Yesterday’s Advisor featured the first 5 of Consultant Whitney Herrington’s 7 alternatives for deciding on merit pay. Today, alternatives #6 and #7.
Employers deciding how to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s reporting requirements have important housekeeping questions to decide, such as: (1) who will take phone calls from the IRS and employees about ACA forms; (2) whether electronic filing (for the IRS) and transmittal (to employees) is needed; and (3) which workers have coverage that was […]
A second employer has been sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its employee wellness program. Once again, the EEOC alleges that the company’s penalties for nonparticipation rendered the program involuntary, making it a medical inquiry prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The latest case, announced Oct. 1, involved a plastics manufacturer […]