Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) contains many provisions, perhaps one of the most discussed is the “play or pay” provision. The ACA’s play-or-pay provision mandates that employers with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees must offer group health benefits to full-time employees working, on average, 30 or more hours per week, or potentially pay a […]
Although sponsors of group health plans have had their hands full sorting through the still-changing Affordable Care Act requirements, the recent uproar involving AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is a stark reminder of the need to stay vigilant on HIPAA privacy — even as companies wrestle publicly with health care costs. As has been widely reported, […]
Companies with 50-99 employees that do not offer health insurance to their workers will not be subject to fines for failing to provide coverage until 2016. This gives such mid-sized firms an additional year to prepare health coverage for workers, and that delay adds to the one-year delay in enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s […]
While most U.S. retirement plan participants age 60 or older move their assets out of employer plans within five years of leaving a company, they often don’t touch the funds for years after that, a new report by money manager Vanguard found. As a result, Vanguard suggests to plan sponsors, this tendency of older terminated […]
Please participate in our brief survey and see how what you are doing stacks up against what other successful companies are doing. We’ll get answers to these questions and more: What’s your company’s 401k match level? What changes are you making with pensions and 401(k) plans? What types of retirement/savings/investment plans do you offer? How […]
This infographic via Mercer indicates that employers are increasingly willing to invest in health management — and they believe their programs are making a difference. “US employers believe that health management is helping to slow medical trend, and they are putting more emphasis on these programs,” says Beth Umland, Director of Research for Mercer’s Health […]
The claims administrator of an employer-sponsored health plan abused its discretion when it rejected a health benefits claim because it: (1) denied it without an explanation or plausible support; (2) had a structural conflict of interest because it was also the insurer; and (3) violated ERISA regulations by merely reciting its policy without refuting the […]
Employers may not feel much of an administrative burden from the new “starter” retirement savings accounts announced Jan. 28 in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, but those opting to participate should be prepared for employees’ questions about the My Retirement Account or “myRA” program ahead of its launch late this year. While […]
Pre-authorization procedures, plan disclosures and geographical restrictions are just a few features group health plans will need to re-examine by the time the recently finalized mental health parity rules take effect. For calendar-year plans, this means Jan. 1, 2015 — less than a year away. The interaction of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity […]
Due to an administrative error, an employer clearly did not provide a qualified beneficiary with a COBRA election notice. However, the qualified beneficiary also benefited from that mistake by receiving 11 months of free health coverage. For that reason, a federal district court in Iowa rejected claims that the employer should be subject to COBRA […]