Medical Benefits articles from December 2003

Medical Benefits archives from December 2003

2003 unscheduled absence survey.(Workplace Health & Benefits)(Column)
December 15, 2003... CCH Incorporated, October 22, 2003. "For the first time since [we] began conducting the survey 13 years ago, the rate of unscheduled absenteeism has dropped to below 2%, and the average cost to employers of workers calling in sick has...

The reallocation of compensation in response to health insurance premium increases.(Workplace Health and Benefits)(Column)
December 15, 2003... National Bureau of Economic, Research Working Paper, August 2003 "As insurance premiums rise, the use of flexible benefit plans, in which employees explicitly choose how to allocate compensation between cash and various benefits, has been...

StressPulse survey, second half 2003.(Workplace Health and Benefits)(Column)
December 15, 2003... ComPsych, October 13, 2003 "More than 29% of employees come to work five or more days a year when they are too stressed or distracted to be effective--a 10% increase over six months ago. In addition, survey [respondents cite] a 13%...

National small business poll health insurance.(Workplace Health and Benefits)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... "America's small-business owners, whose businesses create two out of every three new jobs in this country, continue to struggle with high cost of offering health insurance to their employees. About half of small-business owners offer...

The top five workplace disabilities.(Workplace Health and Benefits)(Column)
December 15, 2003... MetLife, October 16, 2003 "The top five chronic causes of workplace disability include: lower back disorders, depression, coronary heart disease, arthritis and pulmonary diseases. Each year, these illnesses-which, taken together, account...

The cost savings of disease management programs: report on a study of health plans.(Health Care Cost)
December 15, 2003... American Association of Health Plans/Health Insurance Association of America, November 2003 "[Our] evaluations are supportive of the hypothesis that DM programs contribute to reductions in health care costs. Enrollees in [the] disease...

Ninth annual health plan pricing survey.(Health Care Cost)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Sherlock Company, October 2003 "Health plans expect that their premium rate increases will be 12.8% in 2004, before the effects of buy-downs, well below last year's rate of 15.2%. For our purposes, a buy-down is a change in the product...

2003 premium trends.(Health Care Cost)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... National Association of Dental Plans, November 4, 2003 "2003 employee-only group premiums for products with orthodontia increased 3.5% for dental health maintenance organizations (DHMOs), 5.7% for dental preferred-provider organizations...

Senate committee approves two health proposal.(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has approved a proposal authored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that requires health insurance companies to provide coverage for injuries that people receive while participating in...

IRS provides code section updates for 2004.(Legal Pulse)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... The Internal Revenue Service has released inflation-adjusted figures for a variety of code sections, including adjustments to the adoption credit, the child tax credit, the qualified transportation fringe benefit exclusion amounts, the...

DOL sues marketing firm for failure to prudently manage health plan.(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... The US Department of Labor sued executives of TRG Marketing, LLC in Indianapolis, Indiana for failing to prudently manage the firm's health plan, resulting in up to $17.5 million in unpaid health claims owed to plan participants nationwide....

Track key pending health legislation.(Legal Pulse)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Two online resources help you stay on top of all key health legislation as it moves through Congress. 1. Key Legislation in the 108th Congress. This six-page chart from the American Association of Health Plans and Health Insurers...

Podiatrists claim insurance companies run by physicians.(Legal Pulse)(Podioarist Association, Inc. v. La Cruz Azul De Puerto Rico and Triple.S, Inc., 2003 WL 21355869)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Podiatrists claim they can offer services "of equal or better quality" than medical doctors and at a lower price. A group of podiatrists in Puerto Rico sued two insurance companies claiming antitrust violations. They said the insurance...

Going toe to toe.(Health Care Industry)(Industry Overview)
December 15, 2003... Bonar Menninger, HealthLeaders, October 2003 "Experts contend that the long-running fight between Sparrow Health System and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan reflects the shifting balance of power between plans and providers and may...

2003 human resource management positions.(Health Care Industry)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Mercer Human Resource Consulting and Society for Human Resource Management, November 3, 2003 "While the unsteady economy has had a dampening effect on pay levels and pay increases over the last few years, many human resource (HR)...

Life and health insurers' profits jump 214% during first half of 2003.(Health Care Industry)(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
December 15, 2003... Weiss Ratings Inc., November 19, 2003 "With the economy recovering and the stock market up, profits of the nation's life and health insurers jumped $7.2 billion, or 214%, to $10.6 billion in the first six months of 2003. Driving the...

Cigarette smoking among adults: United States, 2001.(Health Care Policy)(Column)
December 15, 2003... Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 10, 2003 In 2001, approximately 22.8% of US adults were current smokers compared with 25% in 1993. During 1965 to 2001, smoking prevalence...

Who pays higher prices for prescription drugs?(Health Care Policy)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... National Center for Policy Analysis, November 19, 2003 "A key argument for adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare is that insurers obtain significant price discounts not available to individual consumers who pay out-of-pocket. But...

Hospital use and survival among veterans affairs beneficiaries.(Health Care Policy)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... New England Journal of Medicine, October 23, 2003 "Initiatives to reduce hospital care were part of the reorganization of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care system undertaken in the mid-1990s. We examined changes in the...

American's health: state health rankings.(MB-stat)(Illustration)
December 15, 2003... MB STAT American's Health: State Health Rankings Rank State Score Rank State Score 1 Minnesota 24.3 26 Ohio 2.2 1 New Hampshire 24.3 27...

Medicare reform bill passes congress.(Late-Breaking News)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Both the House and the Senate have passed a compromise bill on Medicare reform (H.R. 1). Highlights of the bill include the following: * A prescription drug benefit for all seniors * A Medicare-approved drug discount card *...

The relationship between technology availability and health care spending.(Reference Desk)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... Increases in the supply of health care technology tend to be related to higher utilization and spending on that particular service, according to Health Affairs. The author posit that policy efforts in terms of health technology "should allow...

2003 capitation survey.(Reference Desk)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... The exclusive National Health Information survey, published for nine consecutive years, features reliable per-member per-month (PMPM) rate benchmarks available for more than 35 specialties. Rates are also reported for primary care, hospital...

A bitter pill.(Reference Desk)(Column)
December 15, 2003... This report by the new York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) examines prescription drug prices in New York State. The report found that uninsured New Yorkers pay 100% more on average for these 10 common prescription medications than...

Reporting and disclosure guide for employee benefit plans.(Reference Desk)(US. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2003... The US Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has issued this guide to meeting reporting and disclosure obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). The guide provides...