Lower Health Care Costs May Not Be Out of Reach It is no surprise that health care costs have been growing at an astounding rate each year. Lack of transparency and skewed pricing is making it very difficult for employees and employers alike to save on necessary health-related costs. Fortunately, not all hope is lost. With the right strategies, employers …

Effectively Manage Healthcare Spending When making recommendations on a company’s insurance coverage, it is important that a benefit consultant targets these three components: employee engagement, vendor selection and utilization, and plan design. To manage healthcare spending, each of these areas need to be overseen effectively. Employee Engagement: Employees can be purposefully engaged with relevant yet manageable education during the enrollment …

Where the Market Power in Healthcare is Held Hospitals are powerful in ways that the average person would not recognize, because we don’t see the contracts signed between hospitals and insurance companies. Hospital systems hide terms of service in these contracts: they disallow patients from obtaining lower-cost services elsewhere. This is market power in healthcare.   When prominent insurance providers …

Why Our Wages Are Going to Increased Healthcare Costs Life in the USA is arguably very good for Americans. Unemployment is at 3.6 percent through May 2019. This is improved by .3 percent since fall of 2018. While textbook logic indicates a strong economy should push wages upward as business opportunities increase and more labor is needed that’s not the …

A Projected Look Into Voluntary Benefits Plans Currently, in the workforce there are five generations providing labor and support. A decade ago there were only three or four generations in the office. The increase in age ranges directly translates to an increase in the variety of needs to be met by voluntary benefits offerings. The modern term for voluntary benefits …

How Voluntary Benefits Help You and Your Employees Inherently voluntary benefits are about offering flexibility that appeals to a wide variety of employees. The overall group of benefits offered is often referred to as a “cafeteria plan.” Employees can have a look around at the scope of what’s being offered and pick what they’d like while leaving the rest. More …

Telemedicine Benefits Make Coverage Worth it To Employers Incorporating telemedicine into your employer benefits package is a big win for you and your employees. Telemedicine benefits increase employee satisfaction and reduce health costs at the same time. There are millions of patients that use telemedicine – the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide health care from a distance. …

An Update on New Jersey’s Pre-Tax Commuter Benefits On the 1st of March, 2019 New Jersey rolled-out the qualified transportation fringe benefit that requires employers of 20 or more people to offer commuter and transit benefits on a pre-tax basis. Final rules and regulations are expected to be released in the coming months. Earliest enforcement is anticipated for March 1st, …

NJ Proposes Stop-Loss Protection Ban for Many NJ Employers Dear EMPLOYER, The New Jersey Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee is currently debating a bill that would actually ban Stop-Loss protection for many New Jersey employers – potentially putting YOUR COMPANY’S health plan at risk of termination! This proposed law explicitly prohibits smaller employers from taking advantage of the same self-insurance strategies our state’s larger employers …

Understand the Impact of Grandmothered Plans Ending There has been much buzz recently about “grandmothered” and “grandfathered” plans in New Jersey.   Yet another extension was issued in April 2018, allowing — again, at each state’s discretion — grandmothered plans to renew until as late as October 1, 2019, as long as they terminate by the end of 2019.  New Jersey, …