After their preliminary analysis of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ proposed health care reform bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates its gross total cost to be $774 billion over 10 years. The CBO states that if enacted, this bill will increase the rate of insured non-elderly Americans from approximately 83 to 94 percent.

Also, although the CBO estimates 25 million Americans will purchase insurance under the newly established exchanges, the number of people purchasing health insurance outside of the exchanges (or getting it through an employer) will only decline slightly.

For employers who want to improve the value of their dental benefits, making plan changes is just part of the solution. Effective communication is the next step, and this means providing employees with the meaningful information and tools necessary to understand both their dental benefits and oral health risks.

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Employers, your mission, should you choose to accept it is to:

For all clients that have an FSA or HRA, the IRS has made a few changes to their list of eligible expenses.

As a result of these changes, all plans covering dental expenses will allow for payment in full of orthodontia by default. This means that employees can pay for their out-of-pocket orthodontia expenses with pre-tax money through their FSA accounts.

Employers do have the option of restricting this expense on their plans. In order to do this, they’ll just need to opt-out of it when they apply for their plans. Due to the cost ...

Effective September 23, health care providers, clearinghouses and health plans that are “covered entities” under HIPAA must notify affected individuals in an event of a breach of their individually identifiable personal health information (PHI).

This HIPAA Breach Notification Rule is essential for you to understand but it can be a pretty big pain for busy HR and IT professionals to digest and make sense of. To help you all out, we’ve put together a short list of things you need to know.

In spite of this, many employers are currently giving employees no news on their benefits. Data from the report Watson Wyatt 2009/2010 Communication ROI reveals that just 28% of companies plan to increase communication on employee benefits.

The report’s findings paint an even bleaker picture from the employee end of the spectrum. Case in point, 54% of employees nationwide (that’s more than half of all working Americans) have not received any communications this past year from their employers about their company’s current benefits or future plans regarding their benefit programs. & ...

On October 9, 2008, then-President George W. Bush signed Michelle’s Law ensuring full-time students who take a medically-necessary leave of absence do not lose their health insurance coverage as a result. This new law is effective for plan years beginning on or after October 9, 2009.

Brief History of the Law:

Michelle’s Law was named after Michelle Morse, a full-time college student at the University of New Hampshire who had colon cancer. Despite her doctor’s orders, Michell ...

There’s been a good amount of talk recently about the “Balancing Act of 2009”, a bill proposed by Democrat Lynn Woolsey that seems to have a strong chance of passing.

This bill incorporates portions of the Family Leave Insurance Act allowing eligible employees 12 weeks of paid leave over a 12 month period for the following purposes among others:

• To care for their own illness
• To care for a sick family member or new chi ...

When someone mentions the term “workplace wellness program”, what are the first things that come to mind?

Many people would start off by naming some common services that almost all traditional programs have (i.e. weight management and smoke cessation).

There’s a lot of research out there showing us that these services are a good thing. Study after study reveals that obesity and smoking both lead to higher levels of absenteeism, “presenteeism” (you know, when someone is there are work but isn’t 100 percent “there”) and other productivity-related cost issues in a workplace. It’s plain to see why employers put programs with these services into place: they improve the bottom line.

And are they equipped with the financial planning tools and know-how that will help them out along the way?

According to the recent Study of Consumer Finances (SCF), 30% of U.S. households have no retirement wealth whatsoever. On top of all this, most of the people in these households are adults over age 50 who believe that they’re financially prepared for retirement.

From these t results it’s safe to assume the following: