Just start a walking wellness program!  Wellness programs don't have to be complicated.  By just getting employees to increase the amount that they walk daily, their health and wellbeing is greatly improved. A walking wellness program:

• increases physical activity
• reduces body fat and weight
• reduces stress
• lowers blood pressure
• and improves cholesterol levels

To read more about the 2011 study, look here http://chronicdiseaseprevention.org/research/lancaster.html

Want more information about starting a wellness program? Contact us today!

Source:

http://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/workplace-health-study-reveals.html

Do you know how important  one on one enrollments are for employer sponsored benefits?  Most employees who take part in these meetings feel that they understand their benefits better than they did before. Employers put a lot of time, effort, and money into their benefits and should do everything possible to get the most out of their investment.  Employees appreciate their benefits more (and properly use them) when they've had these face to face meetings.

We at Partners Insurance do this for all of our clients.  We feel that this is one of the most important aspects of our jobs.  If your employees don't understand their benefits, then how can we expect them to use them wisely? Educated employees make happy employees.

If you'd like this service for your company, please contact us today!

Source:
http://eba.benefitnews.com/news/employees-survey-colonial-life-benefits-counseling-advisers-2721786-1.html

On March 26, the Supreme Court will hear debates over the health reform law from the National Federation of Independent Business and the Obama administration for nearly 6 hours.  They expect a ruling in late June. The court ruling will cover four issues:

1. Whether the individual insurance requirement is constitutional.
2. If the individual mandate is found unconstitutional, whether severability should be applied.
3. Whether the Anti-Injunction Law applies.
4. And whether the medicaid expansion is constitutional.

Humana has written a wonderful, and very easy to understand, piece on this court hearing. Please visit their article at: http://app.humanaresponses.com/e/es.aspx?s=1579&e=15484&elq=a5668d04189d4c8088054617bbc1ff5a

Employers, do you want to save nearly $10k per employee over 5 years?

Of course you do!  The healthcare industry is finding that consumer-driven health plans are assisting employers in lowering their medical costs.

What are consumer-driven health plans?

CDHPs are a combination of pretax health savings accounts with a high deductible health plan.  They allow employees to pay for health services using pretax dollars.

How can you save using a CDHP, compared to a traditional PPO plan?

Employees generally:

• Lower their health risks by being more engaged in improving their health

• Are more likely to compare cost and quality of healthcare, making them more savvy consumers

Want to find out more?

Contact Partners Insurance today! Call 877-491-9279 or email us at mpile@mypartnersinsurance.com!

Sources

http://eba.benefitnews.com/news/workers-cdhp-risks-medical-costs-study-cigna-2722218-1.html

http://bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20101019ar01p1.htm

Every day, we get asked what medical tourism is.  Simply, medical tourism is travelling outside of your home area to obtain quality healthcare; it is also called health travel.  Many wrongly think that only international travel for health reasons is considered medical tourism.  There is a growing trend of domestic health travel in the United States.

Due to the current state of the economy, people are becoming smart shoppers when it comes to their healthcare needs.  We have frequently noted that people are calling around to see which dentist has the best rates for fillings or crowns or which facility has the best rates for CT scans and MRIs.  Not only does this faciliate the patient finding the best bang for their buck, but it also helps their employer keep insurance claims to a minimum, which in turn helps their employees afford the health insurance premiums each year.

We at Partners Insurance have implemented a program for employer sponsored self-funded health plans, called Partners Surgery Benefit Management Program.  We are focused on changing how and when healthcare is delivered in this era of consumer directed healthcare!

The program analyzes your historical claims spending and workforce characteristics, and then guides you, your actuary, and your reinsurer through the selection strategy for appropriate cases where the savings, safety, risk factors, and incidence frequency rates make sense to include them in your program.  This program is rooted in the long-established transplant center of excellence and rare disease programs that have been around for years.  To find out more, please contact Morgan Pile at mpile@mypartnersinsurance.com today!

The Partners Insurance Rx Solutions Analytics Predictive Model program has changed the pharmaceutical procurement industry with our latest innovation, Average Script Price Guaranteed contracts.

Average Script Price Guarantees

• transfer the risk for drug price inflation from the employer to the PBM;
• are equivalent to aggregate reinsurance with no premium;
• fix your Rx cost and allow for accurate budgeting;
• eliminate PBM conflict of interest on drug manufacturer rebates;
• eliminate Average Wholesale Price (AWP) and formulary bias;
• create real competition in the market and allow bidders to compete using actual claims cost as the basis of their bids.
   

The Partners Insurance Rx Solutions Analytics program through Average Script Price contracts will create significant savings for your company.

• Audits on contract compliance can be run monthly, quarterly or annually and no self reporting by the PBM.
• The winning PBM guarantees the financial performance of their bid on a first dollar basis with no cap.
• No plan design changes and no disruption of retail pharmacy access to your employees.
• Our program provides a level playing field and takes the "games" out of the RFP process.
• Program fees paid by winning bidder and all the savings go directly to the employer's bottom line.
• Fully or self insured employers with 1000+ employees or at least $1 million in prescription spending qualify.

Contact Morgan Pile at 877-491-9279 to take control of your RX spending!

Benefits Roundtable Webinar Series
Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued proposed regulations dealing with the Medicare shared savings program, also known as accountable care organizations (ACOs) under Section 3022 of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
 
Under the proposed rules, eligible providers, hospitals, and suppliers that participate in the shared savings program by creating or joining an ACO can continue to receive traditional Medicare fee-for-service payments under Medicare Parts A and B and qualify for additional payments based upon specified quality and savings requirements. This Webinar will analyze the proposed rule as well as the calls being made by several groups for changes to it. Among other things, the Webinar will address:

• The complexity of the program and what appears to be a bias against medical group participation.
• The excessively high cost of both ACO development and ongoing operation relative to the potential financial benefits.
• The small and uncertain financial benefits.
• The substantial regulatory risks under related joint notices from CMS and the Office of Inspector General (OIG), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that deal with antitrust and fraud and abuse enforcement.
  

  CMS' part of the final rules are due to be issued within the next several weeks.
   
  Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2011
  Time: Noon - 12:40 PM CST
  Registration: Click Here

We are proud to announce that Morgan Pile will be a keynote speaker at the World Health Tourism Congress in Spain this year!
 
The World Health Tourism Congress is the most established and longest running health and medical tourism event in the world. This international event will be addressing 8 health-related tourism segments in sunny southern Spain!

• Medical Tourism
• Dental Tourism
• Spa Tourism
• Wellness Tourism
• Sports Tourism
• Culinary Tourism
• Accessible Tourism
• Assisted Residential Tourism

This premier event offers healthcare providers from around the world the chance to create business opportunities and form partnerships with the largest corporate healthcare buyers in the world.  The WHTC is the first and ONLY event focused on bringing corporate purchasers of healthcare together with world class medical providers.
 
This event takes place June 17-19 in Murcia, Spain.  For more information on the event, please visit the WHTC website.

Benefits Roundtable Webinar Series
This roundtable discussion will explain the requirements and the employer's responsibilities relating to the new participant reporting requirements for 401(k) plans.
 
The format is open-ended with an introduction of current legal and regulatory issues presented by Tod Yeslow of Mitchell Williams and current trends in benefits strategy, design, and funding discussed by Morgan Pile of Partners Insurance. You are invited to listen-in, ask questions, and suggest future discussion topics of particular interest to you. We hope this opportunity will create a lively and robust forum that can become a reliable source for you to stay up-to-date on current developments or issues of concern, expose new ideas in benefits strategy, be used as a tool to address your specific issues, and support network building among your peers.
 
Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Time: Noon - 12:40 PM CST
To Register Click Here

by Brian A. Vandiver of Mitchell Williams

On March 24th, the EEOC's final regulations for the ADA Amendments Act ("ADAAA") were made public. The EEOC originally proposed its implementing regulations (the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or "NPRM") for the ADAAA on September 23, 2009. After receiving hundreds of comments and conducting several public meetings, the EEOC revised its regulations. According to the EEOC, the "final regulations modify or remove language that groups representing employer or disability interests had found confusing or had interpreted in a manner not intended by the EEOC." The EEOC provides the following examples of how the final regulations differ from the NPRM:

· Instead of providing a list of impairments that would "consistently," "sometimes," or "usually not" be disabilities (as had been done in the NPRM), the final regulations provide the nine rules of construction to guide the analysis and explain that by applying those principles, there will be some impairments that virtually always constitute a disability. The regulations also provide examples of impairments that should easily be concluded to be disabilities, including epilepsy, diabetes, cancer, HIV infection, and bipolar disorder.

· Language in the NPRM describing how to demonstrate that an individual is substantially limited in "working" has been deleted from the final regulations and moved to the appendix (consistent with how other major life activities are addressed). The final regulations also retain the existing familiar language of "class or broad range of jobs" rather than introducing a new term, and they provide examples of individuals who could be considered substantially limited in working.

· The final regulations retain the concepts of "condition, manner, or duration" that the NPRM had proposed to delete and explain that while consideration of these factors may be unnecessary to determine whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity, they may be relevant in certain cases.

At first glance, many of the revisions contained in the ADAAA's final regulations appear to be somewhat favorable to employers and the ADA's other covered entities. Nonetheless, there is little dispute that the ADAAA and its final regulations have made and will to continue to make defending ADA claims more difficult. Employers and other covered entities under the ADA should review their policies and practices to ensure compliance with the ADAAA and its final regulations.

The EEOC's press release is available here: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-24-11.cfm

The EEOC's final regulations for the ADAAA and other documents relating to the ADAAA and its final regulations are available here: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adaaa_info.cfmEmployers