April 2013

BTHR Solutions

 

BTHR Solutions Celebrates National Employee Benefits Day!

Your Best Benefits/HR Stories

Employee Benefits Day: Key Issues

Large Companies Are Increasingly Offering Workers Only High Deductible Health Plans

2013 Open Enrollment May Be True Test for Benefits Communications

Five Key Health Care Reform Considerations for HR

Health Care Reform is Prompting Changes in Employee Benefits

Aon Hewitt Survey Reveals Growing Shift in How Employers Intend to Offer Health Care Benefits in the Future

 

IFEBP's Top 10 Ways to Celebrate Employee Benefits Day!

1. Go viral with the HR-lem shake.

2. Espouse the virtues of outdoor exercise by holding a health fair tail-gate during your home team's opening day.

3. Offer employees a soup, salad and choice of potato with their cafeteria plan.

4. Encourage EAP utilization by making a "Call Me Maybe" video: Feeling stressed out, your life is crazy, here's a number, so call them maybe.

5. Develop your own app: Angry Benefit Managers.

6. Take the day off. Change your out of office message to say, 'Google it.'

7. Diversify your investment portfolio into Uncle Jim's "guaranteed winners" NCAA bracket.

8. Hire MIT PhD candidates to calculate your FTE worksheets.

9.Mourn the loss of Downton Abbey characters by calculating survival benefits for the Crawley family.

10.Make a nice hollandaise sauce to compliment your EGWP.

via IFEPB.org

 


Featured Job

Part-Time HR Generalist
Boston, MA

Our client is hiring a Part-Time Human Resource Generalist to manage a comprehensive Human Resources function that supports and advances the organization. Key responsibilities include: HR Compliance, Benefits, Staffing, HR Communications, Employee Relations and Compensation in addition to policy development and interpretation.

Qualifications:

• At least 3-5 years of HR and/or Health & Welfare Benefits, Recruiting, Payroll processing and Compensation experience

• Strong Microsoft Office skills with an emphasis on Word and Excel

• 401(k) in addition to ADP (Payroll and HRIS) experience are a plus

• Strong group/team member skills

• Small HR department experience

• Bachelor's Degree

See the full job description

 

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Happy National Employee Benefits Day!
 by Sam Gruenbaum, President, BTHR Solutions

This annual event, sponsored by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), recognizes benefit practitioners, administrators and advisors for the important role they play in their colleagues' well-being. Through education, communication and administration, corporate benefits professionals strive to ensure benefit programs serve participants and plan sponsors alike. This year's Benefits Day focus is on the Affordable Care Act, and never before has there been more focus or discussion on the role of employee benefits and the future of these important programs that impact so many Americans on a daily basis.

Without question, the Affordable Care Act is one of the largest and most controversial pieces of legislation to affect the world of benefits since ERISA passed in 1976 --over 35 years ago! And while ERISA changed many aspects of benefit administration, and provided rules and guidelines that required implementation, the ACA calls for a fundamental shift in how health insurance and related benefits are provided, managed, administered and funded. These changes will impact every employer, employee, self-employed and unemployed person across the nation. As we approach some of the major implementation deadlines in 2014, our understanding of the implications of the law are just beginning to emerge. Read more

We were thrilled to get so many funny, heart-warming and poignant stories from around the country to share with you as part of National Employee Benefits Day. It was really difficult to narrow it down to our "Top Five". We hope you enjoy these snapshots of everyday life in the world of benefits and remember that from wellness fairs to spouse coverage, your job matters to people every day!

Story #1: Big Love
While working as a compensation and benefits manager for a hip music company, one of the more offbeat employees always referred to his "two wives". My HR colleagues and I would laugh it off, until one day we got a medical claim for maternity benefits for a woman who was not his legal wife! His legal wife was also receiving maternity benefits! We tactfully had to tell him only one of the "wives" was covered!

Story #2: Star-Crossed Lovers
A new employee could not decide whether to purchase spousal life insurance for her husband. She was conflicted, she said, because her husband worked at home and the only time he went out was when he was with her on evenings and weekends. She explained that in the unlikely event that he would die she would most likely be with him and would not benefit from any life insurance she purchased for him!

Story #3: The One Time You Don't Need To Try To Quit Smoking
Our company adds a tobacco-user surcharge to employees' annual medical premiums. The additional premium can be waived if the tobacco user completes a smoking cessation class. We were very interested to see that we had a non-tobacco user successfully complete the smoking cessation class -- she thought she needed to take the class to avoid the tobacco user rates!

Read the rest!

Large Companies Are Increasingly Offering Workers Only High Deductible Health Plans
According to the annual health benefits survey by Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health, 66 percent of companies with 1,000 employees or more offered at least one such plan this year. This figure is expected to grow to nearly 80 percent next year, according to the survey. READ MORE

2013 Open Enrollment May Be True Test for Benefits Communications
Benefits managers are just months away from what may prove to be  the most challenging open enrollment season of their careers.
READ MORE

Five Key Health Care Reform Considerations for HR
As U.S. healthcare reform approaches its implementation next year, the key aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have become well known to most employers, but there remain more than a few issues that haven't received as much attention but still need to be addressed by HR executives. READ MORE

Health Care Reform is Prompting Changes in Employee Benefits
As brokers and employers get ready to meet the benefits challenges posed by health care reform, many American workers have concerns about how the reforms will affect their worksite benefits. Prudential presents it findings in Health Care Reform: The Waiting Is Over, the third in a series of research briefs based on Prudential's Seventh Annual Study of Employee Benefits: Today & Beyond. READ MORE

Aon Hewitt Survey Reveals Growing Shift in How Employers Intend to Offer Health Care Benefits in the Future

The Aon survey included 800 large to mid-size employers covering 7 million employees.

• The amount employers spend on health care increased 40% over the last six years – now at $8,800 per employee.

• Over the same six years, the out-of-pocket and premium costs for employees has increased 64% to nearly $5,000 per year.

• 94% of the employers surveyed said they expect to continue to offer health care over the next 3-5 years.

• 28% say they plan to move to a marketplace health care exchange

• 6% expect they will exit health care completely over the next 3-5 years

• 40% of employers say they expect to move to a health care model that rewards employees who exhibit healthy behaviors or make progress toward health goals.
 

Source:
Aon Hewitt

 

 


Phone: 888.89.ERISA     info@BTHRsolutions.com
www.BTHRsolutions.com