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[Guidance Overview]
HHS's Long Awaited Guidance for Securing Protected Health Information (PDF)
Excerpt: "The guidance identifies technologies and methodologies for ensuring that PHI is unusable, unreadable or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals, as mandated by Section 13402(h)(2) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). ARRA required that HHS issue such guidance within 60 days of the law's enactment and annually thereafter." (Alston & Bird LLP)


[Guidance Overview]
HITECH's Security Breach Notification Requirements (PDF)
8 pages. Excerpt: "This White Paper discusses guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which requires covered entities, business associates, vendors of personal health records (PHR) and related entities to notify individuals when their unsecured protected health information and PHR identifiable health information is subject to a breach of security." (McDermott Will & Emery)


Health Care Spending Forecasts
Excerpt: "Health care spending is a growing share of the economy and forecasts by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suggest that it will continue to grow well into the future. Over the past four decades, the share of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on health care has more than tripled from 5 percent to 16 percent. Recent CBO and CMS forecasts suggest that health care spending will top 30 percent by 2040. The CBO's projections show that health care spending may grow to as much as 50 percent of GDP by 2082." (National Center for Policy Analysis)


Health Insurance Subsidy for Laid-Off Workers Has Holes
Excerpt: "A new federal subsidy designed to help laid-off workers pay for health insurance could be out of reach for thousands of jobless workers because they worked for a small company or their former employer has gone out of business." (USA Today)


Drug Makers/Insurers Drug Deals Tie Prices to How Well Patients Do
Excerpt: "Some experts hail such arrangements as a welcome step toward health care that rewards good outcomes for patients. 'We're going to see a growth in outcomes guarantees for pharma.ceuticals, and it's very healthy,' said Robert Seidman, a consultant who was formerly the chief pharmacy officer for WellPoint, an insurance company. Traditionally, discounts and rebates that drug companies offer insurers have been based on how much drug is used, not how well patients do. But the emerging, outcomes-based contracts would -- in theory -- better align the incentives of insurers, drug companies and the employers that provide health coverage toward improving people's health." (The New York Times; free registration required)


Roundtable to Discuss Reforming America's Health Care Delivery System
April 21, 2009. Excerpt: [From Opening Remarks of Senator Max Baucus.] 'The Committee has spent a significant amount of time laying the groundwork for comprehensive health reform. In the past year, we've held a dozen hearings. We held a day long health reform summit. Now, the time for action approaches. These roundtable discussions will preview many of the policies that the Committee will consider in its June markup. We will follow up today's roundtable on delivery system reform with another on expanding health coverage to all Americans on May 5. And then we will have our third roundtable on financing health reform on May 14. Why is delivery system reform such a critical part of comprehensive health reform? Because our current system falls short. It falls short in terms of the value that we get from the dollars that we spend." (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)


Access to Wellness and Employee Assistance Programs in the United States
Excerpt: "Wellness programs and employee assistance programs are important benefits for workers and their employers; data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS) show that workers in the public and private sectors had greater access to these kinds of benefits in 2008 than they did a decade earlier. Moreover, for all worker groups examined in this study, public sector workers have higher rates of access to wellness programs and employee assistance programs than do private sector workers." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)


Hearing: Ways to Reduce the Cost of Health Insurance for Employers, Employees and their Families
Excerpt: "The Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday, April 23 to examine various health care reform proposals that will guarantee quality and affordable health insurance coverage for all Americans." (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor)


Balancing Hard Choices on Pay and Benefits
Excerpt: "For most companies this year, pay and benefit programs have come to the forefront in the struggle to manage costs in a bad economy. Many organizations have eliminated or trimmed salary increases and annual bonuses. A number, too, have increased employee cost sharing for health care programs through higher contributions or benefit design changes. These are tough choices that go to the heart of big-ticket, high-visibility reward programs. They can carry a hidden but critical cost in the form of lowering employee engagement levels and potentially affecting both productivity and performance. So is there anything a company can do with its reward programs to mitigate these risks?" (Towers Perrin)


American Medical Association to Announce Web-Based Information Service for Physicians
Excerpt: "The American Medical Association plans to announce a new online service that will offer physicians electronic prescribing, reference materials on diseases and other resources, the AP/Kansas City Star reports. The effort aims to help physicians adopt information technology and increase AMA membership. The new service, which was developed in collaboration with Compuware, will be tested as part of a pilot program before it is rolled out to members nationwide next year." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

[Guidance Overview]
Furloughs and Reduced Hours: New Guidance on Cost-Cutting Strategies Other than Layoffs
Excerpt: "Last December, as the recession was beginning to deepen, Littler published an Insight, Furloughs and Reduced Hours: Cost-Cutting Strategies Other Than Layoffs, discussing several alternatives to layoffs, particularly mandatory furloughs of exempt employees, mandatory use of vacation/PTO during furloughs, and reduced workweeks, based on the limited legal precedent available at that time on these subjects. Recently, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued three opinion letters that address some of these alternatives. This Insight is an update to the December 2008 Insight and provides the latest legal analysis." (Littler Mendelson P.C.)


Consolidating Benefits Administration a Top Priority for Multinationals
Excerpt: "A new report from MetLife says 59% of U.S. corporations with multinational operations consider 'consolidating all benefits administration onto a common platform' to be one of their top priorities - compared with 45% of their peer U.S. domestic-only corporations. 'Managing Global Benefits: Challenges and Opportunities' recognizes that as U.S. companies continue to expand globally, they are being challenged to develop benefits programs for their international workforce that are not only competitive in local communities around the world, but also cost-effective to implement and manage in a wide number of countries." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)


Fewer Employers Paying the Costs to Relocate an Employee and Are Cutting Their Relocation Budgets
Excerpt: "However, when companies do decide to move an employee, they are more likely to offer incentives such as help finding a job for a spouse. An Atlas Van Lines news release about its survey said respondents expect the trend to continue at least through 2009. 'Relocation is a tough proposition for both employers and employees. Businesses are looking to save costs everywhere, and workers are worried about losing money on their homes and uprooting their families,' said Greg Hoover, president and COO of the moving company, in the announcement.'But companies still need good people, and those willing to relocate are being compensated for their trouble.'" (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)

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Webcasts and Conferences

( Click to post your webcast or conference )

"What You Don't Know About HCEs and Key Employees" Web Seminar - New Date
Nationwide on May 18, 2009
presented by SunGard Relius

COBRA Provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Workshop
in California on May 28, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)

Group Health Plan Mandates for Rookies: The Basics on the Federal Mandates (Other Than COBRA and HIPAA)
Nationwide on March 26, 2009
presented by EBIA / Thomson Reuters

Maximizing ROI of On-Site Employee Health Clinics
in Illinois on July 29, 2009
presented by World Research Group

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Press Releases

( Click to post your press release )

U.S. Labor Department Secures Appointment of Independent Fiduciary for Profit Sharing Plan of Defunct Hackensack, New Jersey, Company
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)

Council Urges House Subcommittee to Reform Health Care by Preserving and Strengthening Voluntary Employer System
American Benefits Council

Pension Rights Center Statement on the Introduction of the 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009
Pension Rights Center

The SPARK Institute Makes The Case For Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans
The SPARK Institute

Mercer Launches Online Retirement Planning Program
Mercer

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Employee Benefits Jobs

( Click to post your job opening | View all jobs | RSS feed of all jobs )

Pension Director
for Segal on behalf of a client
in CA

Retirement System Director, Assistant
for City of Tacoma
in WA

Director of Compliance
for Rapidly expanding Third Party Administration firm
in CA

Defined Benefit Administration Programmer/Consultant
for Winklevoss Technologies
in CT

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EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com (Sponsor)

(Click on banner to learn more.)

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Handy Links:

• View Today's Active Message Threads
• Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
• Employee Benefits Library

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