Benefits quarterly最新文献

By putting together a comprehensive wellness strategy, employers are not only "doing the right thing" but also are able to see, believe and maintain the tangible return on investment (ROI) that wellness programs are capable of delivering. This article discusses employers' ROI from wellness initiatives, as well as innovations that support a culture of wellness and what enhanced opportunities for increasing employee wellness are available under health care reform. It also describes how wellness is a component of population health management, as well as a core component of the health care delivery system.

The accountable care organization (ACO) has emerged as the centerpiece of postreform initiatives to improve the delivery of quality, cost-efficient care. As the primary partners in delivering ACOs, payers and providers have begun to collaborate on the opportunities presented by the legislation. For employers, however, this new approach to managed health care delivery models will present challenges in adoption different from its predecessors: preferred provider organizations, health maintenance organizations and consumer-driven models. This article identifies these challenges and helps employers understand how they can respond in ways that make them active participants in the emergence of ACOs and secure the potential value of ACOs for their own organizations. For employers, the method to capturing the value of these emerging delivery models is to have a broad understanding of the evolving payer and provider marketplace, how to access or develop ACOs, and how smart decisions today can improve the future landscape of health care.

With Supreme Court and election uncertainty now resolved over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), employers are recognizing the need for immediate action and reassessing the role they play in promoting and insuring the health of their population. Centered on a consistent need to have a workforce that is healthy, present and high-performing, employers face four possible strategic paths. This article discusses those paths along with their attendant risks and opportunities.

Employers all across the country should be in full swing as they prepare to implement the tougher parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (ACA) employer provisions, which are about to come online and take effect in 2014. This article reviews these more challenging requirements and their complications, including how employer calculations over whether to continue to offer coverage might vary by industry characteristics. The author then looks further ahead to the "Cadillac" tax and discusses how this liability may affect every employer's decision about its health care strategy leading up to 2018.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduces many new mechanisms into the insurance marketplace that significantly impact business as usual. Although the changes are of great magnitude and, at times, intertwined with each other, this article sets out to introduce many of the changes in a simplified format. The 2014 changes will impact each market (individual, small-group, large-group and self-insured) in a different manner. This overview highlights those differences and includes a discussion of each.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) established the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) to provide temporary stability to the employer-supported retiree health care benefit market until the major provisions of the law ensuring every individual access to individual insurance become effective in 2014. The $5 billion appropriation was expected to last four years, but was expended in 18 months. This article reviews the development and motivation for the benefit. Further documentation is provided as to which recipients benefited from the reinsurance program.

Health reform is helping to transform the health insurance marketplace and facilitate new opportunities to reevaluate and restructure the underlying framework of employer-sponsored benefits. Central to these opportunities is the emergence of public health exchanges at the state and federal levels offering a coordinated platform of diverse designs and health plans available on a guaranteed issue basis and often with government-provided subsidies. Parallel and complementary to this trend is the emergence of private health exchanges that similarly offer a diversity of plans on a variety of bases. This article shows why, together, these offerings provide potential streamlined solutions for employers as they reevaluate how they facilitate and support access to affordable coverage for their employees (and retirees).

For those industries most likely to be transformed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacting the right strategy is the only strategy. A critical issue will be balancing cost and compliance factors with productivity concerns brought on by changes in the full- and part-time or hourly status of a given workforce. This article discusses industry perspectives in light of the ACA's 2014 implementation date, options for changing staffing models, and how the success of such changes depends on segmenting business units and locations while developing strategies for the different groups. Thus, the mix of full- and part-time employees becomes a more complicated strategy, but an achievable one.