As telecommuting continues to gain popularity with it comes a new set of compliance challenges for businesses. Telecommuting occurs when employees do some or all of their work away from the company’s main office. Computers, laptops and cell phones, and the availability of high-speed internet connections and secure servers, make working from home, hotels, airports,...
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Ways to Make Childcare Costs a Little More Affordable
Childcare can be an employee’s most expensive work-related expense. Fortunately, there is a benefit program you can offer that will at least provide tax relief to employees who use daycare providers. The program is the Dependent Care Assistance Program (DCAP). If you can’t offer a DCAP, employees also can use the Dependent Care Tax Credit...
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Stepping into Lower Drug Costs
Step therapy can save money but some say there can be a downside. One way to keep your health benefit plan’s overall costs lower is to encourage employees to choose generic drugs whenever possible. The U. S. healthcare system saved $1.68 trillion from 2005 to 2014 by using generic drugs, according to the IMS Institute...
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Pharmacogenomics: Better Health and Cost Savings
Drugs are formulated for normal physiology. Physicians with knowledge of a person’s unique genetic makeup can better determine which drugs will be most effective. Anyone who has watched a commercial for a prescription medication expects to hear a disclaimer warning of potential health hazards. Possible side effects — depending on the medication — can range...
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Government Cracks Down on Parity of Coverage Violators
Prior to leaving the White House, the Obama administration increased enforcement of laws requiring parity of coverage for mental health and substance abuse benefits. In a White House task force report, officials said insurers need to make sure that insurance coverage for treatment for mental health and substance abuse disorders are comparable to—or at parity...
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Bosses’ Top Concern is the Employer Mandate
It’s one of the top issues for employers this year. As President Donald Trump begins his term, an Aon survey found nearly half of employers view the employer mandate as the top healthcare concern of 2017. Arecent Aon survey found 48 percent of employers say the employer mandate is their primary healthcare concern this year....
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Health Insurance Premiums Soar over Last Decade
Over the last decade, average annual premiums workers have paid for family healthcare coverage have shot up 78 percent, while employer contributions rose 51 percent, a new report found. From 2006 to 2016, the Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 1,900 small and large employers found worker contributions increased from $2,973 to $5,277 while employer contributions...
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Employers Offer Increasingly Generous Benefit Packages to Top Earners
The rich get richer, and the wealthy get far nicer benefit packages too. A new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts Foundation found employers spend a median of 38 cents of each compensation dollar on benefits, and those earning more receive more generous benefit packages too. “Controlling for other factors, jobs with higher pay generally...
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The Pros and Cons of Paid Sick Leave
Five states, 22 cities, and one county in the United States mandate paid sick leave benefits, making the United States the only country among 22 developed nations that doesn’t guarantee paid leave if someone falls ill or has to care for a sick family member. President Obama in 2015 signed an executive order requiring federal...
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Why Prescription Drugs Cost so Much and What You Can Do About It
Prescription drug costs rose by 12.6 percent in 2014 and by 10 percent in 2015 — well beyond the U.S. inflation rate. And in some extreme cases, specialty drug costs increased more than 5,000 percent. What can employers do to control these soaring costs? In 2015, Martin Shkreli, chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals, was...
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