BY RYAN SPENCER Wellness programs have long been championed as ways for employees to reduce benefits expenses, presumably by making employees healthier. Unfortunately, study after study has proven that wellness programs don’t generate an ROI or even help unhealthy employees improve their health. Employers approach these programs from the wrong angle. While they’re not effective […]

BY CONNER INSURANCE Overview Many employee benefits are subject to annual dollar limits that are periodically increased for inflation. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced cost-of-living adjustments to the annual dollar limits for various welfare and retirement plan limits for 2020. Although some of the limits will remain the same, most of the limits […]

BY BENEFITS PRO Google is aggressively collecting and analyzing health care data on millions of patients in 21 states across the U.S. The effort represents what the Wall Street Journal terms the “biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients’ medical data.” “Project Nightingale” […]

BY BENEFITS PRO Promoting her much-discussed plan to create a single-payer “Medicare for All” health system, Sen. Elizabeth Warren emphasized a striking figure. “If we make no changes over the next 10 years, Americans will reach into their pockets and pay out about $11 trillion on insurance premiums, copays, deductibles and uncovered medical expenses,” the Democratic presidential […]

BY BENEFITS PRO The administration of President Donald Trump has taken two major steps toward requiring hospitals and health coverage providers to give patients detailed information about what care will really cost. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — the arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that oversees Medicare, […]

BY US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES   As directed by President Trump’s on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare, today the Department of Health and Human Services is announcing that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is issuing two rules that take historic steps to increase price transparency to empower […]

BY INDIANA BUSINESS JOURNAL Hospital monopolies drive up health care costs in Indiana, study says Over the past two decades, Hoosiers’ health care costs have gone from below-average to much-higher-than-average, according to a Ball State University study. The study, by Ball State’s Michael Hicks, shows that medical expenditures are high in Indiana because not-for-profit hospitals […]

BY INDIANA BUSINESS JOURNAL From a look at the numbers, Indiana is not a great place to buy health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. While the number of insurers selling plans around the country in 2020 is increasing by one-third over this year, the choices in Indiana have decreased in recent years. Just […]

BY BEN CONNER The health insurance renewal season is your biggest opportunity for meaningful change to your plan, company finances, and employees’ health. Unfortunately, many business leaders miss this opportunity because they don’t believe they have the opportunity or control to spark real change. Instead, they find reasons not to push for change. Some of […]

BY RYAN SPENCER When it comes to health insurance premium increases, many businesses have been bullied into complacency. Instead of fighting back, they’ve accepted the status quo rate hikes of between 8 and 12 percent each year. As a result, many businesses do not take action to lower their costs in large part because they […]