While most organizations ramp up their benefits communications about a month before open enrollment starts, the efforts often drop off at the start of the year.
That's a shame because many employees are woefully unaware of how their benefits function and are often not taking full advantage of what their employer and they are paying for. Employees that don't understand their benefits fully may end up paying out of pocket for services that are covered.
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More employers are including narrow provider network insurance plans among their plan offerings to their employees to give them a lower-cost premium option.
Narrow provider networks limit the number of covered providers included in health insurance plans. While these plans have been mainstays on Affordable Care Act marketplaces, employers have been slow to adopt them. Despite the job market upheaval and intense competition for talent, there is a mismatch between the value that human resources executives and job prospects put on employee benefits, according to a new survey.
One in five workers surveyed said that health care and health insurance are a major factor when deciding to accept a job, compared with only 13% of human resources executives, according to the "2022 Health at Work" survey by Quest Diagnostics. A new survey has found that managing health care costs and expanding mental health benefits will be a top priority for U.S. employers as they ramp up benefits to compete for talent in the tight job market spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, virtual care is expected to become an essential and long-lasting feature of employers' health insurance and employee benefits strategies over the next few years, according to the "2022 Emerging Trends in Healthcare Survey" by Wills Towers Watson. A surge in federal government subsidies has led many people to drop their employer-sponsored health insurance and instead seek out coverage on government-run Affordable Care Act exchanges, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Subsidies, which were increased substantially by COVID-19 stimulus legislation, are so large for some who purchase coverage on exchanges that many of them can access ACA plans that cost just a few dollars a month, depending on their income, according to the report. The IRS has announced significantly higher health savings account contribution limits for 2023, with the amount increasing more than 5% for individual HSA plans.
The new limits were announced in conjunction with other changes, such as increases in the minimum deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket expenses for high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). An expired provision that authorized high-deductible health plans to reimburse for telehealth and other remote health care services before the deductible has been met, has been revived.
The provision was extended from April 1 through Dec. 31 after President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. One fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has been an increase in the number of Americans who are working from home permanently.
With so many people being freed from the yokes of the office, many have chosen to move to other states for a variety of lifestyle or cost reasons. But while these arrangements can be a boon for workers, they can make it difficult when it comes to your workers' group health insurance. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month for people with group or private health insurance.
While the measure still has to face a vote in the Senate, it has broad backing after the cost of insulin has skyrocketed in recent years. People who used to pay less than $100 a month for the vital medication are sometimes paying more than $1,000, depending on their health insurance coverage. It's no secret that most employees do not fully understand all of their health insurance benefits, which can lead to worse health outcomes and them spending more money than they need to for some medical procedures.
A recent survey of 226 executives by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services concluded that employees and employers could enjoy better outcomes if it were easier for employees to find, understand and use the benefits available to them. |
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