Tip Tuesday! Historic coverage expansion to test promise of Obamacare

By Alex Wayne

(Bloomberg) -- After three months of turmoil surrounding the rollout of Obamacare, the country faces an historic turning point on Jan. 1.

From emergency rooms to pharmacies to company human-resources departments, changes will unfold within the U.S. health-care system as the nation guarantees insurance coverage to all Americans for the first time, a goal that has eluded presidents and lawmakers since the end of World War Two.

Beginning with the New Year, insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover people because of sickness, charge them more than healthy customers or drop them when they fall ill. In return, most Americans are required to have a health plan. Some of the 19 million Americans who buy insurance on their own will find their new plans are more expensive with fewer treatment options than before as insurers seek to contain costs.

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Employee benefits compliance checklist for 2013 year end

By Timothy F. Kennedy

 

2013 is not over yet. Employers and HR and benefits professionals must address these 14 compliance issues before the New Year begins. Timothy F. Kennedy is a partner in Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads’s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice, concisely outlines retirement and health care issues that plan sponsors must consider in the following days.

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What affected HR’s job the most in 2013? Top 6 trends

By Dan Wisniewski

 

It’s almost the end of the year, and you know what that means: It’s time to look back at the past 12 months in employment law and see what mattered most to HR. 
Fisher & Phillips’ Richard Meneghello laid it all out for readers. Here’s some of what he  found relevant about the past year:

Healthcare reform

This past year was supposed to be the year of implementation and compliance for President Obama’s key piece of legislation, but that was thrown out the window when the Treasury department announced the employer and insurer reporting requirements — and the accompanying penalties — under the law will be delayed until 2015.

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List of Top 2014 Affordable Care Act Changes for Employers

By Infinisource

The dictionary defines change as “to become different.” Anyone dealing with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can tell you that if anything, it’s different. This law has created a lot of change for employers, including a new list of requirements for 2014.

Most of these changes do not apply to grandfathered plans (indicated as GF Exception). Employers need to make sure they are covering all of these new changes due to ACA, either starting on January 1, 2014, (indicated as 1/1/2014) or with the plan year starting in 2014 (indicated as PY2014)

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Updating your employee handbook: The essentials

By Tim Gould

It’s easy to overlook the importance of keeping the employee handbook current. Here’s a checklist you can use to make sure you’ve got all your bases covered.


A clearly-written, well organized handbook lays out the company’s expectations for employees. It also makes clear what the employee can expect from you.

And when done correctly, it can protect the employer from all sorts of legal headaches.
Sounds simple, right? Maybe not. Badly written or incomplete handbooks have gotten firms in trouble for everything from discriminatory hiring practices to unwittingly creating an employment contract.

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Fit gifts: Presents they'll really go for!

By Karis Gabrielson, R.N.

What could be better than fun and affordable gifts that inspire your favorite people to be healthy and active? Unwrapping fitness gear might give beginners a boost or help seasoned athletes raise their games.*

Here are a few ideas for those on your list. You might even mix and match smaller items for a fitness-themed gift basket.

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Tip Tuesday! U.S. says 15,000 health care enrollments didn’t get to insurers

By Alex Wayne

(Bloomberg) — The government failed to send data to health insurers for about 15,000 people who enrolled in Obamacare through early December, an error corrected last week before it could jeopardize their coverage, the U.S. said.

The percentage of enrollments that aren’t transmitted to insurers, a process known as an “834 transaction” is now close to zero, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a report over the weekend.

While the government announced Dec. 1 that it fixed many of the bugs and errors that had frustrated consumers using its insurance-enrollment system, garbled back-end communications with carriers have taken longer to sort out. The data transmissions are critical to complete the enrollment of millions of people seeking coverage under the Affordable Care Act that was the signature domestic achievement of President Barack Obama’s first term.

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