13. March 2008 by Jon Moss.

Two new benefits - dental implants and oral cancer screening - are now being offered in many UnitedHealthcare Dental^® plans. These added benefits increase the value of our dental plans for your clients and their employees

Dental Implants:   Beginning April 2008, dental implants will be covered in many UnitedHealthcare Dental plans. Implants provide artificial teeth that look and feel natural. Implants are a surgical procedure requiring patients to be in good health, have healthy gums, and have adequate bone to support the implant. With a commitment to meticulous oral hygiene and regular dental visits, dental implants can last a lifetime.

Oral Cancer Screening:   United Healthcare is also enhancing many of their dental plans to cover new non-invasive technology used to screen patients for oral cancer.

This puts UnitedHealthcare Specialty Benefits on the leading edge of the “Wellness” trend, focusing on research-based programs and enhancements that show a connection to improved health outcomes. Experts agree that every adult should have an oral cancer exam at least once a year. 

This new technology improves the dentist’s ability to identify, evaluate and monitor lesions that are difficult to see under conventional lighting. This quick and entirely pain-free exam makes dentists the first line of defense in fighting this deadly disease

Posted in group, dental | No Comments »

26. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

Post-primary polling shows small business owners and their employees are a significant voting segment equal to, and larger than, well-established voting blocs like veterans and union members.The National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s leading small business advocacy association, conducted one national survey and six state-specific surveys Tuesday, polling Democrats in California, Missouri and Arizona, and Republicans in California, Missouri and Georgia. Not only did the results illustrate this voting bloc’s significant presence, it showed health care to be one of the most important issues to small businesses.

Polling data from the four states show the impressive strength and bandwidth of small business owners and their employees:

• In California, small business owners and employees made up 28 percent of the Democrats who voted on Super Tuesday, versus union members who were 24 percent.
• In Missouri, small business owners and employees comprised 32 percent of the Republicans who voted, versus 21 percent¹ who were veterans. On the Democratic side in Missouri, small business owners and employees were 28 percent, versus 16 percent who were union members.
• In Georgia, small business owners and employees were 38 percent of the Republicans who voted, versus 19 percent² who were veterans.
• In Arizona, small business owners and employees made up 31 percent of the Democrats who voted, versus 13 percent who were union members.

“More than ever before, small business men and women made up a significant voting bloc on Super Tuesday. It is clear they are a voting segment that should receive the same attention from candidates as other groups, including veterans and union members,” said Todd Stottlemyer, NFIB president and CEO. 

Despite their significant presence, the issues that matter to small business owners and their employees have been overlooked by the presidential candidates. In fact, the national survey found that 81 percent of owners and 52 percent of employees do not feel the candidates are adequately addressing issues that are important to them, especially health care. Presidential candidates are not effectively considering and reaching this significant voting segment, a group that grows each year as corporate downsizing impacts large employers.  

The rising cost of health care is a major concern for small business owners and their employees who continue to be squeezed by premium increases and state mandates. Nationally, 51 percent of small business owners and 47 percent of their employees say they have had difficulty keeping up with the cost of health care. And both groups feel that the presidential candidates are not saying enough about health care on the campaign trail.     
 
“The research shows that health-care reform is a top concern for America’s job creators, and they are desperately seeking help from the next president,” continued Stottlemyer. “Small business owners and employees are bearing the overwhelming burden of a broken health-care system that needs real reform. Candidates from both parties need to address this crisis head on. Because when you fix health care for small business, you fix it for America.”

-NFIB survey results

Posted in political, health insurance reform, group | No Comments »

26. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

If you don’t have UnitedHealthcare as your group medical provider, then you probably aren’t aware of EmployerEservices.  If you do have United, and don’t know, then you may want to question your existing broker.

EmployerEservices allows your company to manage virtually every aspect of benefit administration online and in real-time.  The benefits are increased efficiency as well as saving time & money.  Here are some of the tasks that can be accomplished on EmployerEservice:  We’ve found that most clients want us to do the service on their behalf using the system, but some really like the hands-on control.  If you’d like to know more check out http://www.welcometoemployereservices.com/online/, or contact us for more information.

Posted in technology, group, medical | No Comments »

19. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

Humana has a nifty little tool allowing for the access and analysis of small employer group plan utilization.  Would it be helpful for you as a small business to be able to know how often your employees:

• visit the doctor
• purchase prescription drugs
• meet deductibles & out-of-pocket maximums

 That type of information is extremely important to employee benefit specialists.  It allow us to determine which benefits are more important to the employees, and which ones are less used.  When implementing an HSA or HRA knowing this type of data is crucial to the success of the plan.

 Humana has recently updated BUD to allow brokers, and the small businesses they advise, access to actionable, group-specific benefit information previously available only to large companies, allowing employers to model the impact of different benefit designs, track health plan usage, and ultimately better budget for employee health care – a large and growing bottom-line expense for many small firms.

“BUD empowers brokers to deliver an unparalleled level of guidance to small companies as they make critical decisions about their health coverage,” said Jerry Ganoni, president, Humana Small Business. “Many companies unknowingly provide richer benefits than their employees use or want. With knowledge gleaned from BUD, small businesses are better able to choose the most appropriate health benefits solution for their workforce.”

Designed with the help of Humana’s actively-appointed brokers and agents, BUD features two primary tools to help employers choose and use their health plan with confidence: the Health Utilization Tool and the Contribution Strategy Tool, both of which protect the privacy of employee health information by removing identifying data.

The Health Utilization Tool offers employers information about employee usage of key services, including doctor office visits, prescription drug purchases, inpatient admissions, outpatient surgery and emergency room visits. Brokers can show small employers how the usage of these services by their own employees compares with that of similar accounts in the same geographic area and industry. Brokers can help employers track deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses to see how many employees have satisfied zero percent, 50 percent or more, and 100 percent of their in- and out-of-network limits.

Posted in technology, insurance companys, consumer-driven, group, medical | No Comments »

19. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

AvMed Health Plans announced recently it is adding several new small group plans, some of which are 50 percent less than their existing plans.

The lower-priced plans offer low co-payments for routine visits to primary care physicians and specialists and low co-pays for prescription drugs. The company is also adding new pairing choices to allow small group employers more flexibility.

Gainesville-based AvMed Health Plans provides health care coverage to both small and large employer groups in Florida and has offices in Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Gainesville and Jacksonville. The company also provides Medicare in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Posted in insurance companys, group, medical | No Comments »

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.

 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 »

14. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

By Bob McNett

You may have worked with an employee benefits broker when setting up and reviewing your company’s employee benefits program. This is the person that markets plans, usually from a number of different insurance companies, and assists the employer in selecting an insurer and plan design that best suits the company’s needs.

But what if you’re not happy with your broker or your plan? How do you go about finding a new one, or making sure your company’s group insurance is in the best hands? Here are a few things to consider when you’re choosing a group health and dental insurance broker.

Is the broker focused on the employee benefits marketplace?

If the broker is an insurance agent that discusses your benefits plan, and then wants to talk about your personal life insurance or property and casualty insurance, this might be a bad sign. There are thousands of different kinds of insurance out there, each with its own set of laws and policies. You don’t want a jack-of-all-trades here. You want a specialist.

A broker that focuses on employee benefits will be more likely to be familiar with the increasingly complex benefits market. He should also be able to not only help you put a new plan in place, but be there after the initial sale is made to assist in the everyday servicing of the benefits plan.

Can you get referrals?

Don’t be shy about asking the broker for names and phone numbers for at least five of his current business clients that his firm has served for at least five years. Referrals are absolutely your best way to distinguish between a slick talker and the broker that offers good, long-term value to his clients.

When you call these referrals, ask them questions such as “What happens when you have a claims or billing problem? Does your broker’s office work with your employees on these issues, or do they have to call the insurance company? How satisfied have you been with the long-term service that your broker’s office gives you?”

What kind of customer service does the broker offer?

Customer service really is the most vital factor. As the client, you do not pay directly for the broker’s services. All brokers are paid an ongoing commission by the insurance company. So, it really costs you no more to work with a good, service-oriented broker than one that sells you a plan and disappears.
Are you familiar with the insurance companies being marketed?

The group medical insurance industry has greatly consolidated over the last decade or so. A market that once offered endless choices for health insurance has been reduced to less than 10 credible choices in most parts of the country. Most good brokers will show you the same array of leading insurance plans, simply because the choice is limited.Beware of a broker that tries to market an off-brand plan, one that you are not familiar with, or that has low financial ratings. Often these kinds of programs offer low initial premiums to the buyer and high commissions to the broker, but do not perform well over time.

Because most good brokers will offer the same plan choices, the buying decision comes down to this: Which broker demonstrates the best service capability to your company? Which broker offers a long list of referrals of current, long-term clients without being asked for it?

Most employees and job seekers consider a company’s benefit package nearly as important as salary when deciding whether to stay at a job or which job offer to accept. A good benefits broker should be like a human resources director for your company: helping you hire and retain the caliber of employees that makes your business successful.

Posted in group | No Comments »

11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

National Federation of Independent Business in Tennessee is looking to legislation and a new insurance product in the state to help small business owners provide health insurance for their employees.

The NFIB is working to push two bills through the Tennessee Legislature to help alleviate some of the financial pain of offering health insurance.

One bill would give small businesses a tax credit for continuing to offer insurance. As proposed, the bill would give a business $400 back on its franchise and excise tax bill. However, that number could be reduced once the overall cost of giving the credit is studied by government accountants and the bill goes through the committee process. A similar bill that gave North Carolina businesses a $250 tax credit in 2005 cost the legislature there $16 million.

The other bill would allow more small businesses to pool their insurance risk. By forming health group cooperatives, small businesses could spread their risk over a broader group and perhaps get lower rates on insurance. NFIB wants to give more flexibility to the current law as to who can form these pools. Businesses now must meet strict requirements and have been in association for five years before they can form a cooperative. The groups must be comprised of 1,000 employees or more or have 10 employers or more to join.

Posted in group, medical | No Comments »

5. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

Employers should consider installing this device to assist employees in becoming debt-free

Posted in debt, group | No Comments »