Benefits Archives - Page 17 of 25

The Affordable Care Act is in full swing.

“Now what?”

I think I’ve heard that question from business owners a million times in the past few weeks.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(PPACA or “Obamacare,” as it’s commonly known) means big changes for small businesses.

Recently, Governor Kasich decided that, despite his initial opposition to the Affordable Care Act, he is going to accept the expansion of Medicaid allowed under that law. He reasons that this will extend insurance to 366,000 uninsured Ohioans while forcing the federal government to pick up the cost— rather than small businesses in Ohio picking up the tab.

It’s true that this will open the spigot for $1.4 billion of federal funds to flood the Ohio program. But does anyone really believe this will not impact residents and businesses in our state?

Potential Benefits

A recent article in Crain’s Cleveland Business — “Expansion of Medicaid could help employers” (subscriber’s ink) — reports that the Greater Cleveland Partnership has thrown its considerable support behind this. They believe that this will allow small businesses to shift low-wage workers to Medicaid, effectively lowering the cost of their healthcare plans. It was this very idea that made government-backed health insurance appealing to many small business owners.

The benefits of the Medicaid provision in the Affordable Care Act are:
- The federal government will pick up the full cost of this expansion for the first three years, followed by 95% of the cost and eventually 90%.
- It will allow low-income employees to opt out of an employer-sponsored plan to go to a “no-cost” (to them) Medicaid plan.
- Employers would then be off the hook for any kind of penalties associated with a lack of insurance coverage.
Governor Kasich has stated that if the government doesn’t follow through on their promise, he will back out of the plan.

Questions Remain

In that same article, despite its initial support of the expansion, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce says it still has “serious concerns” about the long-term financial stability of the program.

Is anyone else confused?

Everyone seems to be hedging their bets, and at this point there are more questions than answers.

It boils down to this: eight months after the Supreme Court upheld the healthcare overhaul law, small businesses in Ohio and across the country are no less certain about how all of this impacts them and their companies.

This uncertainty, coupled with a challenging economy, means small business owners still have to assess their options in an uncertain market. They may not have the luxury of having a Benefits Department to advise on what’s right for them. That’s why more and more small businesses are turning to outside help for their employee benefits administration. More companies are relying on PEO companies to navigate these murky waters.

What do you think about the Medicaid expansion? Tell us about it below!

“Providence Seaside Hospital in Seaside, Oregon.” ©2010 M.O. Stevens, used under a GNU Free Documentation license.
If my mom only knew.

When I was younger, my parents would encourage (mandate) that I help them in the family garden out back. However, that really cut into my wiffle ball playing/tree-climbing/insect-torturing summertime. I came up with every excuse in the book to get out of it. I was told it was good exercise and that the vegetables we grew were healthier and better for me than anything we bought at the grocery store. I didn’t care. I was a kid. I hated vegetables.

Now we appear to have come full circle. Not only are gardens making appearances in the suburbs, they’re also starting to dot cityscapes and in a surprising twist, corporate campuses.

Four years ago, GMS built ten “garden blocks.” Any employee who wanted to take part in gardening was assigned to one of five teams. Each team could grow anything they wanted to in the garden (provided it was legal.) GMS would provide the soil and the water, and Mother Nature would provide the sunlight. The rest was up to the team members. Anything we grew, we could keep.

Needless to say, most of us didn’t have a whole lot of gardening experience. But we learned. We worked together, and each year, the garden got better.

And special things happened along the way.

Team members who worked in different departments got to know each other outside of work. We worked together to strategize what vegetables would give us the best yield and what could we do with those vegetables. We got to work out in the sunshine, and we started eating a little better.

Turns out, we were ahead of the trend. A recent article on workforce.com reports that more and more companies are creating gardens as opportunities for team-building, morale-shifting, and overall wellness promotion.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of a good wellness programfor employers looking to keep their healthcare costs low. At-work gardening may not be the end-all, but it’s an inexpensive way to start.

You can grow more than vegetables. You can cultivate teamwork.
Do any of these sound familiar?
- Losing good employees to competitors.
- A cranky work environment.
- Excessive workplace injuries.
- Out-of-control healthcare costs.
- Ridiculously high unemployment insurance costs.
If you’ve been dealing with any of these issues, no doubt you’ve come to the conclusion that HR is more than just a luxury enjoyed at big corporations. HR is a necessity for small and medium-sized businesses, too.

It’s possible that you have HR problems. What are you going to do?

HR Outsourcing

You’ve heard about HR outsourcing, but maybe you don’t know what it entails or how to learn more about it. How can you tell if it is right for your company?

You’ve heard about Professional Employer Organizations (PEO). But maybe it sounds a little shaky since you don’t know of anyone who’s using a PEO. How popular are PEOs?

You might be surprised.

The HR outsourcing industry has grown from $61 billion in 2002 to $103 billion in 2007 and is projected to grow to $162 billion in 2015. The largest chunk of that is the PEO industry.

Professional Employer Organizations (PEO)

PEOs work with small businesses to help reduce time and cost when it comes to the things that an HR department would do at a large company. If you walked into a large corporation with thousands of employees and asked to see their HR department, what do you think you would see? The department would include a payroll department, a benefits department, a risk management department and actual HR manager or department. You might even find a wellness department to work hand-in-hand with the benefits department.

These huge companies have tons of money to throw at problems and lots of high-priced attorneys to get them out of trouble. Yet they still keep all of these departments active. They know how important HR can be.

Big corporations realize they need HR departments. It’s even more crucial that small businesses understand that they should have access to these essential HR services.

Specializing in Small Business HR

Not all small businesses have the means or the resources to keep all of these HR departments in-house, and that’s when they should begin looking at outsourcing their HR.

A small business is already probably outsourcing their payroll, their benefits and their Worker’s Comp administration to different companies. All of those departments need to be able to share information with each other. If you can have one vendor do all of that for you, allowing you to focus on growing your business, wouldn’t you? What if you could do that while saving money as well? What if in addition to saving money, you could also offload a lot of your tax and employee liability in the process? Can you see why this industry is growing?

What about compliancy issues? In the last five years, have you seen an increase or a decrease in the amount of regulations imposed on your business? What about the Affordable Care Act? Do you need to be compliant? If not now, will you someday? What does that mean to you? Do you know who to turn to find out?

There are tons of HR questions that small businesses have, and PEOs—like GMS—have the answers. Ask us anything.

***

“Footbridge to Canary Wharf,” © 2008 Stephen McKay, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.
When an employee calls to say they woke up feeling like death warmed over, do you have to tell them to drag their butt to work because your company doesn’t have a Sick Time Policy? Or when you receive vacation requests, do you have to think twice about how to track it because your Time Off Policy is so complex? Unfortunately, many would answer yes to these questions because of inefficient Paid Time Off (PTO) Policies.

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Keep It Simple

As a benefit that many companies offer to their employees, PTO Policies are constantly evolving to accommodate the changes in the working world. However, many employers fall into the trap of overly complicated policies that are not only difficult for employees to understand, but difficult to track. Keeping a simple policy that will make employees happy and maintain effective workplace attendance is easier than you might think.

An accrual table based upon tenure is a simple way to track the amount of time an employee may take off. It fosters employee loyalty as they work to climb the ladder to achieve more vacation time, while the accrual method regulates how frequently time off can be taken by not awarding PTO all at once.

Charmaine Hollaway wrote a recent article addressing increased vacation time requests around the holidays. An organization can effectively manage such requests by creating a time off policy that incorporates the following:
- Place a cap on the number of days that employees may request during a vacation leave.
- Regulate the number of employees from within a department that may be out at any given time.
- Mandate how much notice employees must provide prior to taking vacation.
Simultaneously tracking a Vacation and Sick policy for employees can be further simplified by automating the accruals through your payroll service. Working with a professional employer organization like GMS makes this possible. Our HR Account Managers can help you design a policy that is tailored to your company’s needs and we can automate the tracking to take that time-consuming task off of your plate. So the next time you look to update your PTO Policy, consider simplifying the process.

Quote Source: Midwest HR

Image Source: Call Center Comics
Virtually every company in America is bound by the Federal Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA).

This law “regulates the status of employees (versus independent contractors) and provides for a minimum wage and overtime unless the employee meets an exempt classification.” However, the scope of this law is not simply limited to employees’ wages.

Protecting Whistle Blowers

Did you know that an added feature of the FLSA is the protection of employees who may be labeled “whistle blowers”?

Under the FLSA, an employee cannot be retaliated against for filling an official complaint against their employer with a government agency. According to an article on JD Supra’s legal website, a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling has expanded this law to include “intra-company” complaints. They have also stipulated that this complaint can be in written ororal form.

Forming a Written Policy

As with any kind of employee-related issue, the best protection for an employer is the proper documentation of any employee events. By documentation, I don’t just mean that a supervisor should write it down and file it. All the documentation in the world doesn’t mean a thing unless the employees know what the rules of the game are.

That’s why every company should have a written policy on how to handle employee complaints—and every employee should know exactly what that policy is. The tricky part is knowing just how much is too little and when you may have gone too far in setting up your company rules.

Avoiding FLSA Issues

Companies with the strongest Human Resource infrastructures in place are the ones who are least susceptible to FLSA penalties or potential employee lawsuits. To help protect themselves from ever-evolving government regulations, companies are looking for assistance in employer liability management.

For many companies, a Professional Employer Organization like GMS can help.
The news channels are flooded with updates on the trials and tribulations of the Affordable Care Act’s website and accompanying registration process. Politics aside, the implementation of this piece of legislation could mean big changes and larger financial challenges for your health benefits plan.

Most small business owners today are able to provide some form of health insurance coverage for their employees through large commercial healthcare plans. However, with the Affordable Care Act, these plans will come at a cost for business owners. In fact, Ohio businesses are expected to see a 71% increase in these premiums.

These high increases may force you to reduce or eliminate the health benefits you are able to extend to your employees, forcing them to buy insurance from the government’s healthcare marketplace.

An Alternative to Government Healthcare

The appeal that the Affordable Care Act has for many Americans is also one of its biggest challenges for those looking to enroll. Long wait times, sparse customer service and other registration obstacles will make it difficult, not to mention aggravating, for your employees to secure health benefits which match their needs.

Fortunately, you have another option for your company’s health benefits. You can implement a self-insured plan. Self-insured companies are responsible for their own medical costs, eliminating the need to subsidize the healthcare expenses of other insurance groups.

How Self-Insured Policies Work

Self-insured healthcare provides plan flexibility, control and the potential for premium reductions for your business. Companies are responsible for contributing to a claims fund each month and that money is used to cover all employee medical expenses beyond their out-of-pocket costs. With a self-insured plan, you can still provide quality care to your employees and protect them from having to navigate through miles of government red tape.

An essential component for any self-insured policy is known as the TPA, or third-party administrator. TPAs ensure that your employees are getting all the benefits promised to them in their insurance policy.

Who Has the Time?

Of course, if you’re a small-to-medium sized company, you are probably thinking “Sounds great, but we don’t have the time or resources to manage self-insured policies ourselves.”

That’s where GMS comes in. Our services:
- Let you focus on growing your business. We cover everything from eligibility to claims management and even customer service.
- We’ll worry about the policy details. You worry about growing your business.
- Save you money. We underwrite a custom policy for your group so you won’t pay for extra insurance that you don’t really need.
- Limit your risk. We offer stop-loss insurance, which minimizes your exposure in the event of an unforeseen and major health claim.
Learn more on how a self-insured plan administered by GMS can drastically reduce your health care costs, increase the cash flow of your business and ultimately provide better coverage for your employees and their dependents. Contact us today.

Image credit:

Creative Commons Image: Images_of_Money
With the waters of healthcare becoming murkier every day, employers and employees abdicate many of the cost-auditing responsibilities regarding their healthcare to their insurance company. Unfortunately, placing this level of trust in your company’s health insurance carrier leaves the proverbial fox to mind the hen house.

Those who purchase health coverage through a commercial provider mistakenly believe their insurance company is actively advocating for them and monitoring the costs incurred for healthcare services. While this is far from the case, the shocking part of this reality is that the insurance companies are forcing you to pay more than you should for your company’s coverage.

Benefits of Self-Insured Plans

A self-insured health plan can reduce healthcare premiums for your small business by reducing overhead and other management costs charged by big insurance plans. When you have a third-party administrator like Group Management Services manage your self-insured plan, you ensure your employees receive everything promised to them in their plan and limit you from spending more money than anticipated.

Negotiate prices: Insurance companies are billed by the hospital based on what the hospital thinks they should charge for their services. On the other hand, TPAs look at what the hospitals pay Medicare – which is often considerably less than what the hospital would bill to an insurance company – and negotiate healthcare costs from there. This can have significant impact on healthcare costs (in your favor). To learn more about this business model, I encourage you to read this article from the New York Times about the “$1,000 toothbrush.”

Eliminate Price Secrecy: The practice of provider and hospital consolidation in the marketplace creates an uneven playing field for insurance companies to negotiate true cost-savings for their members. A TPA like GMS will underwrite a custom policy for your group so you don’t pay for coverage that the group doesn’t need and monitors all claims to reduce your financial risk.

Audit bills: TPAs have the resources and knowledge to help your employee check each bill to ensure there is no double billing for equipment or health care services. A TPA can challenge prices for services that are beyond “reasonable and customary,” substantially reducing patient bills and keeping your claims down.

Employee peace-of-mind: With the changing landscape of healthcare, you can assure your employees have job security along with quality and affordable health coverage. A TPA’s main concern is you and your employees, ensuring a more personable and attentive service experience.

Increased cash flow: Self-insured plans managed through a TPA brings the control of processing of health claims back in-house, minimizing losses and reducing administrative costs.

Self-insured plans through a third-party administrator like GMS can give you more control of your coverage and help cut costs, while still providing quality coverage to your employees. Interested in how a self-insured plan could help your business? Get a quote now or speak with one of GMS’ TPA experts.
Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010, many business people and consumers have felt that their insurance costs were going to be going up. I’m sure they have never regretted being so right.

The deadline looms for Ohio to submit insurance plan options to the federal government for the healthcare exchanges. As the deadline approaches, there have been more and more articles both locally and nationally that talk about projected increases in healthcare premiums.

ACA Impact in Ohio

In Ohio, Lt. Governor and Director of Insurance Mary Taylor has talked about small businesses seeing an increase between 50-85%. Some companies may even see an increase as large as 150%, she says. Granted, under the ACA, companies with older or sicker populations may see their premiums shrink by as much as 40%. However, those with populations which were once more desirable will see a huge increase. This is due to the law’s provision that rates must be based on a large community (community rating) with premiums being more equally spread over that community.

Many news stories are being written about the “unintended consequences” of this law. Some of the ACA’s biggest supporters, like unions and members of President Obama’s party, are beginning to voice serious concerns about the law.

Understanding the ACA

Of course, the ACA is now the law of the land thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in June of 2012. That means that employers will have to make pretty tough decisions in the next few months as more of the law’s features begin taking effect. Many employers have been taking advantage of what has become a cottage industry of late, the Obamacare seminars. However, those have left many employers even more confused.

Large companies are also confused, but have more resources to guide them through these waters. Small business owners must learn to navigate them alone, or do what others have done and begin conversations with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like GMS. A PEO can provide small businesses the same resources and infrastructure that a large company has without all of the associated costs.

PEOs Can Help

For further information on how a PEO can help you deal with the ACA, contact Tim Austin at taustin@groupmgmt.com or 330-659-0101.

“Stethoscope and Piggy Bank,” ©401(K) 2012, used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
More than 60% of employees in the USA are paid by direct deposit, and the number will only continue to grow.

Here’s why:

Benefits for Employees
1. Quick: No more waiting in line to deposit your check at the bank, or sending the paper check to your bank through the ATM or your phone app. Now you can be sure the money gets to where it needs to be.
2. Convenient: Employees don’t have to worry about being in the office to get paid. If they are on a vacation or out sick, they can be assured the deposit will be made. They can also control which account the paycheck goes into- maybe they choose to direct funds to a retirement savings plan or a checking or savings account. Bills can be paid immediately online as soon as a deposit is made.
3. Green: Reduces a company’s carbon footprint, and offering online pay statements that are available 24/7 would also contribute to the green impact.
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Benefits for Employers
1. Cost Savings: Per-check amounts saved can add up quickly once the accounts are set up. You will wonder why you didn’t make the switch to direct deposit sooner!
2. Peace of mind: Knowing your employees are getting paid on time and the money is going exactly where it needs to go.
If you own a small business but haven’t yet offered direct deposit, the only question left to ask yourself is why, with so many benefits, you haven’t switched yet!
A recent NIH funded study looked at medical expenditure bills that represented more than 8,303 emergency room visits and came up with two startling conclusions:
1. There are huge variations in prices.
  Bills sent out for sprained ankles ranged from $4 to $24,110.
2. Prices overall are really high.
  The average emergency room visit cost 40 percent more than an average month’s rent (or $1,233 as the average rent is now $871 per month).
The Washington Post shared a chart that broke down the top 10 most common reasons for visiting the emergency room—designated by billing codes—and how much each one cost. Just a quick glance confirms the high prices and vast variations. A headache could cost $15 – or $17,797.

So how do you protect yourself (and your employees) from having to pay these radically high prices or extreme variations? Education and Supplemental insurance may be an option.

Education

The most important thing you can do, as an employer, is educate your employees on when / WHEN NOT to use the Emergency Room. This education is not meant to discourage an employee from seeking medical attention, rather it is meant to educate that a sore throat is not the reason to see an ER doc.

What is supplemental insurance?

Supplemental insurance typically refers to supplemental health insurance, insurance policies that pay out cash directly to the person insured. Other types of supplemental insurance include accident & disability.

How supplemental insurance works

Payment is often event-based. So the insurance pays the insured a set amount if you visit an emergency room, or for each night you spend in a hospital. In no case is the benefit sufficient to cover the cost. What it does is reimburse you for expenses your existing insurance does not cover. Supplemental insurance should NOT be your only form of insurance.

Why should I offer supplemental insurance to my employees?

If you are looking for a way to attract and retain more talented employees, offering a competitive benefits package with supplemental insurance can convince them to join and remain part of the team.

GMS can help you build a better benefits package

GMS can help you offer supplemental insurance plans and special benefits to your workforce. As one of the largest employers in Ohio, GMS has the buying power to secure great rates on supplemental insurance. That means through GMS you can gain access to high-quality supplemental insurance plans for low prices.

We offer a range of supplemental coverings, including:
- Life
- Dental and supplemental dental
- Accident, disability, and short-term disability
- Cancer and special disease
- Hospital indemnity and intensive care
- Long-term care
If you have questions about supplemental insurance for small businesses or how GMS could help your business, contact us today.

Potential Benefits

Questions Remain

HR Outsourcing

Professional Employer Organizations (PEO)

Specializing in Small Business HR

[more]

Keep It Simple

Protecting Whistle Blowers

Forming a Written Policy

Avoiding FLSA Issues

An Alternative to Government Healthcare

How Self-Insured Policies Work

Who Has the Time?

Benefits of Self-Insured Plans

ACA Impact in Ohio

Understanding the ACA

PEOs Can Help

Benefits for Employees

Benefits for Employers