Insurance

Give employees heads-up on new flex spending rules

12/07/2010

The new health care reform law resulted in some changes in the way health care Flexible Spending Accounts will work—and employees need to act on some of those changes right away! Help employees make the most of current FSA benefits and plan future health spending by letting them know about the following changes.

Does new health law require us to cover dependents?

12/07/2010

Q. We offer health insurance coverage only for individual employees. We’ve never provided family coverage for anyone, nor do we make it available at the employee’s cost. An employee with a daughter in grad school says the new health care law requires that she be allowed to add her daughter to the plan because she is younger than 26. Is this true?

Higher workers’ comp fees next year for N.C. employers

11/30/2010

North Carolina employers will see their workers’ compensation premiums rise this coming spring when new rates take effect on April 1. The voluntary market rates will rise 0.6%, while the assigned risk pool will see a 4.1% increase.

Contract talks stuck? Put health care on the table

11/19/2010

News to note if you work in a unionized workplace: Health benefits are still a legitimate bargaining chip. Members of the University Professional & Technical Employees Union recently agreed to shoulder more of the health insurance burden in exchange for better performance-based pay.

3M will steer retirees off its health plan, into Medicare

11/11/2010

Citing a projected rise in health insurance costs following enactment of the health care reform law, 3M has announced it will soon drop retirees from its own health coverage and instead pay them to sign onto Medicare-backed insurance.

HR after the mid-terms: What’s Washington going to do?

11/09/2010

Republicans captured control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, while Democrats retained a slim majority in the Senate. With a Democrat in the White House and a divided Congress, what does that mean for the HR-related issues that have dominated the headlines for the last two years? Here’s our rundown of the likely legislative scenarios.

EEOC issues final GINA regulations

11/09/2010

The EEOC has just issued final regulations implementing the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA), the federal law that makes it illegal for employers to use genetic information to make decisions about health insurance and employment. Download the final regs here, and then use them as the basis for reviewing your wellness program and other work processes that might violate GINA.

What kind of information are we required to give participants in our health insurance plan?

11/01/2010

Q. We just received a letter from an employee who has requested a copy of our medical plan. Are we required to provide this information to her?

No contract with employees? Feel free to change terms of employment

11/01/2010

Employers that don’t require employees to sign employment contracts are free to change the terms of employment anytime they want. By staying on the job, employees legally accept the new terms and become bound by them. That’s true even if they continue working under protest. Their only remedy would be to quit and sue over the change.

Dallas employers team up to change health care benefits

10/29/2010

Nine employers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area have teamed to align their health benefits so they are more “value-based” and encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. Part of a national initiative known regionally as the Texas Health Strategy Project, the effort aims to give workers easier access to high quality, evidence-based and cost-effective health care by reducing barriers to essential services.