A new trend of health plan offerings has emerged over the past few years, according to a new report from Zywave Inc. Group size appears to be a determining factor in whether employers are offering more generous health plans or working on implementing more costsharing strategies for health benefits.  Large organizations—with more than 500 lives—tend to offer generous health plans, likely in an effort to use their benefits packages as recruiting and retention tools in a market that is becoming increasingly fierce.

Smaller groups are cutting back on benefits and using cost-sharing efforts with employees. This trend of leaner benefits with smaller groups is likely an effort to bring down expenses associated with rising health care costs and other costs related to the ACA. Read More 

Did you know that it only takes 15 minutes for the sun to damage your skin but 12 hours for that damage to become visible? Many individuals suffer from hours of skin damage before even realizing that their skin is in danger.

Since skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, you should keep these prevention tips in mind:

• Try to stay out of the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Wear clothes with tightly woven fabric and a hat that shades your face, neck and ears.
• Wear sunscreen every day that has a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15.
• Routinely inspect your skin, and, if you suspect that a spot on your skin is new or has changed color or appearance, contact a dermatologist. Read More

The ACA’s employer shared responsibility rules define a full-time employee as one who has an average of 30 or more hours of service a week. Beginning as early as Jan. 1, 2015, applicable large employers must provide full-time employees and their dependents with affordable, minimum-value health insurance or risk having to pay a penalty.

It was feared that many employers might reduce employees’ hours in order to lessen the impact of the ACA’s employer mandate penalties. However, a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) demonstrates that the majority of employers have not reduced hours as a result of the ACA’s mandate.

Specifically, the survey shows that 14 percent of organizations have reduced part-time hours and 6 percent plan to reduce hours. Another 8 percent of employers considered reducing part-time hours but decided against it.  Read More

On March 25, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former employee of United Parcel Service (UPS). The employee was faced with the choice to either continue working her labor-intensive job during pregnancy or take unpaid leave.

In its Young v. UPS decision, the Supreme Court held that the employee should be given the opportunity to prove that UPS violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) by not providing her the same light-duty accommodation that was given to other UPS employees who were considered injured or disabled. The PDA requires that women affected by pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition be treated the same for all employment-related purposes as “other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.”Read More