Considering how much we already pay for health care, you have to wonder why doctors, hospitals and insurance providers so often fail to coordinate their patients’ care.
Your primary care doctor, the hospital you visit and the various specialists you are sent to are typically part of different organizations that do not communicate effectively with one another. Balls get dropped and care suffers. In part, it’s a consequence of siloed medical practice. Continue reading
A 2015 Glassdoor survey noted that 79% of employees favor more benefits/perks to a pay increase. Most small businesses lean toward a one-size-fits-all employee benefits package. However, such benefit packages are not a favorite among employees, or business owners who want to meet the diverse needs of their workforce. This has brought about an increase in the number of employees favoring consumerized employee benefits. With consumerized employee benefits, employees can pick and choose benefits that complement their lifestyle and financial goals. Heading the list of must-have benefits are Health Insurance Reimbursement and Retirement Saving Plans. Continue reading
One continuing issue is the problem that health care reform poses for the staffing industry and similar employers. This type of business may find they are now obligated to offer health coverage to relatively short-term and employees who work variable hours. This will continue to be a learning curve for companies such as temp agencies.
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Aside from whatever a visit to the doctor costs you in money, it also costs you in time. A lot of it.
End to end, the travel and waiting time for a doctor’s appointment can take several hours — often disrupting work or school. Only 17 percent of it — 20 minutes, on average — is spent actually seeing the doctor, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh physician Kristin Ray and colleagues at the Harvard Medical School and the RAND Corporation. Continue reading
AMY MOSES and her circle of self-employed small-business owners were supporters of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. They bought policies on the newly created New York State exchange. But when they called doctors and hospitals in Manhattan to schedule appointments, they were dismayed to be turned away again and again with a common refrain: “We don’t take Obamacare,” the umbrella epithet for the hundreds of plans offered through the president’s signature health legislation Continue reading
A federal agency on Monday released final rules on how employers can offer workers financial incentives of up to 30 percent of the cost of their cheapest health insurance plans to participate in wellness programs without violating federal laws protecting the confidentiality of medical information Continue reading
If patients know how much their medical care costs, they’ll shop around for the cheapest option — and over time, health care costs will go down. At least, that’s the idea behind the drive to improve price transparency, a strategy embraced by Donald Trump, among others. Continue reading
In today’s environment, expense control is a top focus for companies in light of low inflation rates, low productivity growth, limited pricing power and intense margin pressure. As employee-related costs rise to the top of companies’ financial statements, clients turn to you, the brokers, for solutions to reduce the contributing factors and get more out of the investments they are making. Continue reading
