* See updates below. It’s not exactly a news flash that health care is expensive, so it won’t come as a big surprise to most that, despite all the noise … Read more
Weekly Wrap: Top Job Creators, a Deadly Employee, and “The Office” Goes to India
I know the calendar may not agree, but it’s easy see that the Fall season is finally here. Yes, it’s not officially Fall until September 21, but here in … Read more
Coping With Benefits: How to Help Employees Make Wise Choices
For many employers, the message is clear: health care reform is going to cost money. Removing lifetime limits, adding more dependents to your plan, … Read more
Mercer Survey: Employers Pushing to Keep 2011 Benefits Increase Under 6%
How much of an increase in benefit costs are employers willing to absorb next year? Would you believe it’s now up to 5.9 percent? A new survey … Read more
Survey: Family Health Premiums up 3%, but Workers’ Share Jumps 14%
The annual Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Benefits Survey is out, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, it shows that health care costs and coverage … Read more
When Wellness Sucks, We All Lose
As a crazy cynic (yet grudgingly a realist at times), there is a certain disdain I have for wellness programs. Could it be that “Big Brother” … Read more
What’s Hard About Making Benefits Communications Easy to Understand?
A couple of months ago I was, just like many of your employees, trying to make sense of a benefits annual enrollment guide. This one was from my husband’s … Read more
Medical Tourism: It Can Cut Costs, But is it Right for Your Employees?
We’ve heard of quite a few schemes to cut health care costs. Certainly cutting coverage and switching insurance companies to save a buck are the less … Read more
Do Your Employees Really Want to Get Their Benefits Info via Social Media?
Last month I shared my befuddlement about the National Business Group on Health’s findings that employees don’t want information about their benefits via … Read more
How to Translate the DOL Health Care Reform Notices Into English
This week I spoke about communicating health care reform at the IFEBP Benefit Communication and Technology Institute in Boston. I talked to a number of … Read more