15. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

An employer asks: “I want to set up an ‘Employee of the Month’ program, but I don’t know where to start. How do I go about doing this?”

Start with the things you need to consider and, with your answers, decide on what you will do. Here are questions to consider:

• What’s motivating you to want to have an employee of the month program? What do you want to accomplish? If your reason is that you think it’s a good idea…or because a competitor is doing it…that’s not good enough. What are the specific benefits to your organization if you have a program? If you can’t define specific benefits, why waste time and money on this?
• How many employees would be eligible for the award? Are they in one location or more than one? How many locations? Will you have an employee-of-the-month at each location? Will you have a winner in each department?
• Which employees will be eligible? Only employees in some departments? Only the nonexempt (usually the hourly-paid) employees? All employees excepting top management?
• Who will select the winner? Will you have employees nominate candidates? Vote on them? And/or make the final selection? Will a team of management people make the selection? Will the top exec make the selection?

If one of your purposes is to encourage employees to improve their performance or the quality of their work…consider having employees recognize coworkers who exhibit outstanding performance…or who “go beyond the call of duty.” You could give employees outstanding service certificates or thank you memos they would fill in with a coworker’s name, the reason for giving the certificate or memo, and the date. The employee or employees with the most certificates or memos in a month would be the winner or winners for the month.

• What criteria/standards will you use to select the winner?
• What is the form of recognition you will use? The typical recognition is a plaque on the wall with the employee’s photo and/or name, or a paper certificate presented at a meeting of employees. An award also could be, or include, cash or a gift.

Will an “Employee of the Month” award promote competition vs. cooperation and teamwork?

It is more likely to promote competition than cooperation. You have to decide which it is that you want: competition between individuals…or cooperation within a team. An “Employee of the Month” program works, for example, to motivate individual sales people to excel. It can be counter-productive in a team environment.

If you want to use this type of award, consider offering it to teams or departments. Such as a “Team of the Month” Award. You’ll have less resentment against the winners if the employees are on teams, or in departments, competing with other teams or departments.

Is it advisable to have staff or management pick the award winners?

The answer depends on your current workplace culture…and the kind of culture you want to encourage. Where does the power reside now? How much authority and responsibility do you place with employees? Do you want to encourage employees to accept more authority and responsibility? Answers to these questions will help you decide.

In addition, if you choose to go with a “Team of the Month” Award, it’s pretty difficult to have the employees select or vote for the winning team.

One approach some employers use in selecting winners is to have the customers or clients do the voting. Typically, in this approach, the focus is on delivering quality customer service or achieving high customer satisfaction. Employees give the customer or client little ballots or coupons on which the customer or client can write in the name of the employee who gives them quality service or high satisfaction. The employee or employees who receive the most “votes” from the customers or clients in a given period are the winners.

What are some negatives associated with “Employee of the Month” programs?

Following are three reasons this type of well-intentioned recognition program becomes counter-productive or fails:

• The monthly award becomes routine. Employees eventually ignore it.
• Employees come to view the monthly winners as the recipients of favoritism, even as the “boss’s pets.” If the Employee of the Month isn’t selected by some objective system or measurement, in time employees see the selection of the monthly winners as the result of favoritism by someone in management.
• The program eventually damages employees’ morale. When the monthly winners do not actually deserve the recognition, the program can damage the morale of other employees.

Guidelines for Selecting Winners

    Here are some characteristics to look for in a winning “Employee of the Month.” They are adapted from guidelines used in a program at Stanford University:

• The employee demonstrates excellence in performance and customer service, actively builds partnership with colleagues, and contributes new ideas for the benefit of the University.
• The employee is dedicated to accomplishment, is venturesome, takes responsibility and gets things done.
• The employee is committed to people, and involves, challenges and supports others.
• The employee is enthusiastic. The employee inspires others with a positive attitude, is energetic, motivates others into action, is friendly, and goes out of his or her way for others.

Posted in non-insurance, group | No Comments »

15. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

Posted in health insurance reform, insurance companys, medical | No Comments »

15. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

by Kathleen Kerr 

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday he plans to sue UnitedHealth Group — the country’s largest health insurer — and its subsidiary, Ingenix, after the company allegedly manipulated data to cheat consumers out of adequate reimbursements for medical care.

Cuomo said he has launched an industrywide investigation into health care reimbursements and estimated that some companies have been lowballing payments to customers for a decade. A six-month probe found two United subsidiaries — United HealthCare Insurance Co. of New York Inc. and United Healthcare of New York Inc. — used Ingenix data to severely under-reimburse customers and cheat them out of millions of dollars, he added.

Cuomo has not charged the companies with wrongdoing but he said investigators found United lied about data and manipulated numbers to keep its reimbursements low. The probe is ongoing.

The attorney general said he would file a civil lawsuit that would include three other subsidiaries of United and will seek restitution for consumers.

Additionally, Cuomo has subpoenaed 16 of the country’s largest insurers, including Aetna, CIGNA and Empire BlueCross BlueShield.

The subpoenas request the companies provide documents that show how they computed reimbursement rates, copies of member complaints and appeals, and communications between members and Ingenix and the insurers.

Cuomo’s office said the probe found that the Ingenix reimbursement database — owned by United but used by most major health insurers — used data that resulted in smaller payments to consumers.

Dr. Nancy Nielsen, president-elect of the American Medical Association, who attended the Manhattan news conference at which Cuomo announced the investigation, indicated the fraudulent reimbursement system was widespread, noting: “United has a track record that stretches from Monterey to Montauk.”

Those potentially affected were people with “out-of-network” insurance that allows them to seek care from any doctors they choose. About 28,000 Long Island residents have out-of-network policies with United, a Cuomo spokesman said. “When insurers like United receive convoluted and dishonest systems for determining the rate or reimbursement, real people get stuck with excessive bills and are less likely to seek the care they need,” Cuomo said.

In a statement, Minneapolis-based United said it is in discussions with Cuomo and that: “The reference data is rigorously developed, geographically specific, comprehensive and organized using a transparent methodology that is very common in the healthcare industry.”

And Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield president Mark Wagar said the company would continue to work with Cuomo’s office to determine whether any of the information used was inaccurate. “If that is found to be the case,” Wagar said, “Empire would consider any and all remedies available to protect the interests of our members, their families, our group customers and providers in the New York marketplace and to maintain our company’s historic commitment to fair and reasonable coverage.”

Consumers have become accustomed to receiving reimbursements based on what insurance companies call “reasonable and customary” prices for the area where they live.

But Cuomo said that while the United companies that used the database knew customary charges for a doctor’s visit might average about $200, the reimbursement was based on a charge of $77 per visit. Using those numbers, customers who receive 80 percent reimbursements would receive only about $61 for a visit that cost them $200.

“Based on the findings in this investigation,” Consumers Union program director Chuck Bell said, “it appears that United Health failed to fulfill the promises it made to cover a fair portion of medical expenses and consumers were stuck with the bill.”

Dr. Nielsen said, “The investigation launched today by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo calls into question the validity of a system that health insurers have used for years to reimburse physicians and their enrolled members.”

And Dr. Robert Goldberg, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, indicated support for the probe, saying there will be “long-term benefits to health care in New York” as a result of cracking down on reimbursement pricing.

Posted in health insurance reform, insurance companys, medical | 2 Comments »

15. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

 by Judy Greenwald

More U.S. employers are offering voluntary benefits to their employees for two main reasons: the growing cost of health care, which has led employers to shift costs to voluntary benefits, and the desire to attract and retain employees, experts say. According to the fifth annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends by New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 39 percent of employers ranked providing a wider array of voluntary benefits as either “extremely important” or “very important” in 2006, up from 31 percent in 2005.

By line of business, with an estimated $4.72 billion in voluntary benefit sales in 2006, disability insurance accounted for the largest share with 23 percent, followed by life insurance at 21 percent, according to Avon, Connecticut-based Eastbridge Consulting Group Inc.

A voluntary benefit program is “an easy way for employers to address” employee needs, says Lawrence Singer, senior vice president at Segal Co., a benefits consultant in New York. “The employer’s involvement is marginal, the investment is zero or quite low, and employees get the protection by buying the product with their own money.”

Randall Stram, Bridgewater, New Jersey-based vice president of employee paid products for MetLife, says employers today are in a conundrum. They want to retain employees, help them with their work/life issues and increase job satisfaction, but they also want to control benefit costs.

“The answer that many employers are coming to is that voluntary benefits are a very cost-effective way to supplement their employer-paid benefit offerings,” he says.

“Many employees are interested in [voluntary benefits] when they’re hired,” says Kathy Croley, payroll administrator for Laurel, Delaware-based Johnny Janosik Inc., a furniture retailer with about 300 employees that works with Voluntary Benefits Systems Inc., an Ellicott City, Maryland-based voluntary benefits marketer.

“Also, we like to help take care of our employees. It’s more beneficial to us in the long run,” says Croley of the retailer, which offers voluntary benefits that include short- and long-term disability, life, critical illness, dental and accident insurance.

Voluntary benefits also help employee recruitment, said Marjorie Teague, human resource manager of Mattawan, Michigan-based Ralph Moyle Inc., a 135-employee trucking firm. It “definitely gets them more motivated to come here rather than somewhere else,” said Teague, who works with Columbus, Georgia-based American Family Life Assurance Co. of Columbus, which is known as AFLAC.

Kathy McPhillips, director of benefits for Bensalem, Pennsylvania-based Charming Shoppes Inc., which operates 2,400 retail stores in 48 states, added homeowners, auto and pet insurance and a computer purchasing program to its existing voluntary benefits last year for its 33,000 employees.

The goal was “to really enhance our overall benefits package and some things we thought would be of particular value to our associates, full- and part-time,” says McPhillips, who works with consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Washington.

Furthermore, a voluntary benefits program gives employees “access to benefits at better raes” because they are part of a group.

“Then it allows them to pay for it through payroll deductions,” says Judy Hime, Jackson, Tennessee-based benefits manager for West Tennessee Health Care, which has about 5,600 employees.

Employees are less likely to miss a small sum taken out of their paycheck twice a month than “if they had to make a monthly or quarterly payment to the insurance company,” says Hime of the hospital chain, which has coverage through Hartford, Connecticut-based Cigna Corp.

Employers also are using so-called mini-medical plans, which cover basic medical services that include physician visits and prescription drugs, as a tool to retain employees where they may not have had medical coverage before, says Phil Grece, New York-based vice president and product manager in American International Group Inc.’s domestic accident and health division.

Increased medical costs are a factor as well.

“I think [voluntary benefits are] going to increase in popularity because the health insurance costs have continued to grow” and cutbacks in employer-paid programs are creating gaps in employees’ health coverage, says Ted Bosse, president of Voluntary Benefits Systems Inc.

“There’s many more employers that are not paying for what maybe five, 10 years ago was a traditional employer-paid benefit,” such as dental and disability insurance, says Mark Sylvester, vice president of voluntary sales at Kansas City, Missouri-based Assurant Employee Benefits, an employee benefits marketer.

“Companies are not just offering benefits for the sake of offering voluntary benefits, but they are offering it for a reason that would fit into their company benefit strategy,” says Garry Sullivan, senior vice president at Aon Consulting, a unit of Chicago-based Aon Corp. “If they just had an increase in their health care contributions for employees,” they may consider introducing an auto or homeowners program that would save employees money and help offset their higher health care costs, he says.

Additionally, employers have moved away from offering concierge-type products, such as discount movie tickets and take-home dinners, which were more common about 10 years ago, says MetLife’s Stram. “We’re seeing less of that, with more focus on the financial security, financial protection products,” which is a reflection of employers’ desire “to provide supplemental benefits to their employees.”

The suite of benefits offered to the 3,800 employees at Boston-based Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, however, includes group universal life and long-term care insurance; legal services; pet, auto, homeowners, renters, identify theft and travel insurance; and consumer product discounts for cell phones, electronics and movie tickets, says Debra Weafer, director of compensation and benefits.

There is “not a lot of opportunity to increase the benefits package,” and voluntary benefits are a way to “add something new and different for our associates,” Weafer says.

Posted in voluntary, health insurance reform, group, medical | No Comments »