A Desired Epidemic: Obesity and the Food Industry
In the Middle Ages, alchemists sought to turn common metals into gold. Today some doctors and scientists seeking to prevent and treat obesity in the United States are attempting an equally difficult transformation. They want to change people, their willpower, their lifestyles, their metabolism, even their DNA to make it harder to gain weight and easier to lose it.
However, transforming people with drugs, weight-loss surgery, genetic engineering, hypnosis and other extreme steps is not the answer to obesity, because people are not the problem.
To read more on this commentary that appeared in the Washington Post on February 21, 2007 by Deborah Cohen click on
commentary.
Benefits Can Improve Business Success
Employers realize strong benefits can attract great talent and retain key employees, thus reducing turnover cost. Some even understand that benefits done right can improve the company's bottom line.
The Principal Financial Group and a panel of employee benefits experts recently recognized 10 firms for successfully balancing employee benefits with corporate performance. Those firms took innovative approaches to wellness programs, automatic enrollment measures, employee stock ownership plans and defined benefit retirement plans.
To read this article in its entirety click on
Benefits.
Electronic Health Data Can Reduce Costs
An emergency room setting with electronic health records can rein in health care spending, according to a study by MEDecision and Christiana Care Health System.
When ER doctors have easy access to a electronic records, the hospital can save an average of $545 for visits that resulted in admittance, the study shows.
MEDecision, a health care software company, and Christiana Care Health System, a Delaware health care provider, compared ER encounters where the medical staff at a trauma center had access to an EHR system with visits that relied on traditional paperwork in 2005. The ER team had electronic access to medical and pharmacy claims data on inpatient and outpatient visits that were supplied by medical providers who were outside of the hospital system.
The technology allowed for savings in laboratory testing, cardiac catheterization and medical and surgical supplies. However, further analysis in larger and diverse populations is required to confirm the absolute and component cost savings linked with electronic records, the study concludes.
“Health information exchange is a promising means for achieving important changes in our health care system,” says Dr. Henry DePhillips, chief medical officer at MEDecision. “We now have an economic value associated with openly sharing patient clinical data and delivering it to point of care.”
Information provided by Benefit News 2-8-07
Flexing Their Muscles: TPAs Serve Up Flexibility For Midsize Employers
Despite recent acquisitions and a push for more high-tech solutions, third-party administrators still believe the middle market craves flexibility and highly personalized service.
"For middle-market employers, the large health insurance and managed care companies - such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, United, Cigna and Aetna - tend not to offer much flexibility with their services," says Elliot S. Cooperstone, CEO of Prodigy Health Group, Inc., a health services holding company, specializing in benefits management. "Moreover, the service level they tend to offer midsize employers is varied," he adds.
Industry analysts generally define the middle market as employers with 200 to 5,000 workers. About 52% to 55% of nonfederal U.S. workers with health employee benefits are in plans using some degree of TPA, according to the Society of Professional Benefit Administrators.
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TPA's.
Strategies For Boosting HSA Participation
Aligning health care costs with financial investing might help employers get more workers into health savings accounts, according to UnitedHealth Group, an HSA provider that recently conducted an analysis of HSA enrollees and their employers.
Firms that integrate health and financial solutions with HSAs stand a better chance of increasing their HSA participation rate, UnitedHealth Group found.
Nationwide, only 60% of patients in an HSA-eligible plan have opened up an account at a bank. At companies that emphasized online enrollment, made steady HSA contributions and mounted a strong educational campaign, 84% of workers have opened an account.
Nearly 70% of UnitedHealth Group's clients contribute to their employees’ HSAs, with the average employer making a contribution of $895. In addition, 67% of participants added to those accounts, with the average deposit totaling $1,206. Equally important, 86% of participants carried a balance into 2006. The average balance was $815.
“Consumers of all backgrounds are increasingly prepared to play more active roles in their health care financing decisions, as long as the process is integrated and simple to use,” says Tracy Bahl, CEO of Uniprise, a health plan managed by UnitedHealth Group. He believes the “data is beginning to establish a clear pattern of how account-based plan designs are working well to support health care affordability and quality.”
Article provided by BenefitNews 2-1-07.
Better Communication Benefits Open Enrollment
Many employers are concerned about communication challenges during open enrollment season, while employees are most concerned with the growing complexity of the benefits enrollment process, according to a new poll from Watson Wyatt.
Sixty-three percent of the 67 organizations surveyed rank employee communications as a top challenge in the recent enrollment season. Another 36% cite fully engaging employees as a chief challenge.
“Annual enrollment has changed significantly at most companies,” notes Jeri Stepman, Watson Wyatt’s national leader for health and welfare administration. “It’s moved from a transactional or registration-like process, where the goal has been to automate and to increase efficiency, to an engagement and decision-support process, where the goal is to engage employees as benefits consumers.”
Information provided by BenefitNews 2-1-07
A Bite Out Of Dental
Although long insulated from employers' cost-cutting efforts because of their low cost, the rising cost of health coverage is taking a bite out of dental plans, industry experts say. Troubled with high rates of inflation in their medical plans, some employers are scaling back dental benefits to compensate.
According to the National Association of Dental Plans, health care premiums climbed 7.7% in 2006, while dental premiums rose just 2.7%.
This article can be read in its entirety at
Employee Benefit News.
