4 Things to Consider When Picking a Benefits Plan

group health insurance benefits plan

Group benefits are a critical part of your compensation strategy. More importantly, the benefits you provide or don’t provide can affect your retention of key talent. Yet there are many options out there, and it can be hard to choose the right benefit plan for your employees. Here are four things to consider when picking a benefits plan. The Total Price Tag Employees want insurance with no premiums, but they’ll love benefits with low premiums. The difficulty is finding good group insurance plans that offer the coverage employees want at…

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Nebraska legislators prepare to fight for new cancer insurance bill

Nebraska lawmakers are set to wrestle over a new cancer insurance bill that is coming to the Legislature. The bill concerns the use of chemotherapy pills and other such medications and whether or not insurance companies will have to provide coverage for these treatments. Typically, insurers provide coverage for cancer treatments given intravenously, but do not cover oral medications. In some cases, oral treatments are effective in stopping cancer, but insurers have claimed that coverage for this type of medication would be too expensive for both consumers and insurance companies.…

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New search tool for Medicare Part D for 2012 available through Q1Medicare.com

The Medicare Part D prescription drug plan search tool – also known as the PDP Finder – is now launched through Q1 Medicare and this stand-alone feature is now available for use. This tool gives Medicare beneficiaries such as seniors a look at all of the different Medicare Part D plans available for 2012 for their areas quickly and easily. These plans are offered along with the primary details for all drug tiers of coverage, such as the monthly premiums, “Donut Hole” coverage, the initial deductibles, and cost sharing/co-payment information.…

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First large insurance company is ceasing coverage of Avastin breast cancer drug

Blue Shield in California, which is a health insurance company with 3.2 million members… is the first among the large insurers in the company to announce that they will no longer be providing coverage for the breast cancer drug called Avastin, following a unanimous recommendation by a federal advisory committee that the Food and Drug Administration rescind the medication’s approval as a treatment for the disease, stating that patients were not helped by its use. That said, Avastin is still holding onto its approval, as commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg…

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Answers you should know to the FAQ’s about Medicare

Though it may feel overwhelming when you are faced with the most common questions to Medicare and Medicare Supplement Insurance, in truth, it doesn’t take hours of research to know what options are available to you. The most commonly asked question is regarding the difference between Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans, and the Original Medicare. The fact is that there are a number of important differences between them. The original plan is government Medicare, whereas MA is private Medicare. The two plans involve comparable out-of-pocket expenses. An MA plan is essentially…

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