Health insurance plans cover your physical health as well as your mental health. When an employee goes to see a doctor for a mental health condition, the condition is grouped into one of two categories.

It’s either biologically-based or non-biologically-based. Some people might ask “why do these categories matter to me?” The reason why they matter is fairly straightforward and simple.

If you have a mental health condition that’s biologically-based, you get an unlimited number of doctor visits covered by your health plan. If your condition is non-biologically-based, you get a limited number of covered visits.

On Monday August 17, three men (one American and two Russians) were charged with stealing personal data from more than 130 million credit and/or debit cards.  Data was stolen from customers of Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven, the Hannaford Brothers supermarket chain and two other unnamed corporate entities.

On July 2^nd, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a new law giving individuals who were eligible for continuation of coverage under mini-COBRA on or after September 1, 2008 but either:

We are almost a decade into the 21^st century and just about everything has migrated onto the Internet. You can shop online, book travel online, bank online and in Boston, MBTA customers can now update Charlie Cards online.

Shouldn’t employee benefits information be online too?

Here are three good reasons to put all of your company’s benefits information into one user-friendly online portal.

1. Books and binders are for the dark ages.

More and more Americans are going to naturopathic (i.e. natural and holistic) doctors like acupuncturists and mind-body healers. Yet, so many in the medical community (including the doctors of the AMA) continue to dismiss these doctors saying their treatments don’t work.

Despite what AMA doctors say, an influential group of U.S. Senators (led by

As early as 2007, here’s how much it cost to care for all Americans with type 2 diabetes:

• $116 billion in Direct Costs (i.e. their medical care)
• Approximately $58 billion in Indirect Costs (i.e. disability benefits, money lost through work absences, premature death)

This all adds up to a grand total of $194 billon, or 10% of all healthcare dollars spent in the United States.

Let’s take a look at this issue on an individual level. The medical care for a person with diabetes is twice as expensive as the care for a person without diabetes.

On top of this, 16% of Americans with serious ...

On July 14^th, The House of Representatives introduced America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (HR 3200) .

All across the nation, people are struggling to pay the bills and feed their families. Now, add to this the cost of healthcare, which we all know is on the rise. The economy is still in a recession and people are putting off doctor visits, delaying needed medical care and opting not to fill prescriptions.

Healthcare costs are a huge strain on the budgets of so many Americans, especially those who are critically ill. Many people—even those with employer-provided insurance—who are critically ill face a very difficult dilemma in light of economic pressures, they could either:

• Keep up the treatments and fall into medical debt
• Postpone or cut back on treatments they need to beat their disease (and in some cases stay alive) to avoid overwhelming debts
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Everyone needs to know about wills and healthcare proxies. These documents are there to ensure that, in the event of an untimely severe illness, injury or death, all important decisions are taken care of for you in a way that you’d want them to be made.

Many carriers offer free will preparation services that help you create, execute and store your will. A healthcare proxy is an important legal document that employees should know about and complete.

The following will tell you a little bit more about what will preparation and the healthcare proxy are and why they are important for your employees.

Will Preparation Services: