401k Level 4 Wealth Management

Employer-sponsored benefits reflect the culture and business of the organization, and plans should be crafted and selected accordingly. Think about your current (or former) organization's benefit plan. Did it help to improve the quality of your work as well as your personal life? Why or why not? Was it a generous benefits program or were there specific benefits you felt should have been included?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) had mame dramatic changes in the field of the health care system, especially in Medicare, that will seriously take effect in American seniors. Indeed, much of the health law’s new spending is financed by spending reductions in the Medicare program. In addition to the provider payment reductions, Obamacare significantly reduces payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans by an estimated $156 billion from 2013 to 2022.( Elmendorf, letter to Speaker Boehner). About 27 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in MA plans, a system of regulated and private plans competing against each other as an alternative to traditional Medicare. MA plans are attractive to beneficiaries because they offer more generous and comprehensive coverage than traditional Medicare by capping out-of-pocket costs and offering drug coverage to a rasonable

There is also something known as the coverage gap. For some plans, a patient can reach a

There are many advantages of 401 (k) plans, both for employees and their employers. One major important benefit is that the employee has control over how much money they contribute to their account. In addition all employer contributions and any growth in the capital grow tax-free until withdrawal. If the company matches contributions, it's like getting extra money on top of your salary. Also, unlike a pension, all the savings can be moved from one company's plan to the next (or to an individual retirement account) if a participant changes jobs (Neiters). Another benefit can be that employees can reduce their taxes because they are reducing their taxable income while they are working and because they will be in a lower tax bracket when they begin making distributions. "The major cause for the huge popularity of

Many people are concerned about rising health care costs. In reaction to this, some individuals and companies are gravitating toward the assumed lower prices of Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) health plans. HMOs spend billions of dollars each year advertising their low cost services. While these savings look good on paper, there are many pages of small print. The explanation after the asterisk indicates that not only do the HMOs lack lower costs, but they also short-change the patient in quality care. Much of the money spent on premiums goes directly into the pockets of stockholders and less is then available for

However, the coverage Medicare provides comes with premium and cost-sharing requirements as well as gaps in covered benefits, especially for long-term services and supports (LTSS). As a result, Medicare coverage often is supplemented by additional coverage from retiree benefits, Medigap policies separately purchased, and, for low-income beneficiaries, Medicaid (Rowland, 2015). Now, the eligible Medicare beneficiaries can choose between managed care and indemnity plans. Medicare managed care program, Medicare advantage plan, promoted new forms of managed care that were more like traditional insurance policies than like HMOs.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establishes new requirements for health plans and insurers changed in order to expand access to affordable coverage, and prevent individuals from losing certain coverage. New coverage insurance market regulations will prevent health insurers from denying coverage to people for any reason, in which their health status, and charging people more based on their health status and gender. These new rules will also require that all new health plans provide extensive coverage that include at least a minimal set of services, caps annual out‐of‐pocket spending that does not impose cost‐sharing for preventive services, as well as no impose annual or lifetime limits on coverage. For example, new insurance market regulations within private insurances allow young adults are able to stay in their parents health insurance up to the age 26. Once an employee has reached age 26 they have to upgrade from their parents insurance plan to defendant coverage plan eliminating annual and lifetime limits on coverage such as rescissions and waiting periods within 90 days. Health insurers will be prohibiting from placing an age limit to their coverage in case of fraud. Large employer that offer coverage plans will have to automatically places employs in to a low cost premium plan if the employ sign up or exit out of coverage. Overall health plan premiums will be able to vary based on an age, geographic area tobacco

In addition to an expansion of who is covered by insurance plans there were also significant changes made to what is covered by insurance plans. Insurance carriers will no deny health care coverage to individuals because of pre-existing conditions (OpenCongress). This is an advantage for individuals that cannot find coverage due to chronic conditions. The new legislation also prohibits a health plan from canceling coverage of a member unless there is evidence of fraud (OpenCongress). Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to dis-enroll members when they have an expensive catastrophic injury or chronic illness. Insurance companies will no longer have lifetime maximum benefits that cap a patient’s coverage. This provision is aimed at protecting the patient from the insurance company, however this well-intentioned provision may prove costly if there

For insured small group and individual market plans, the health insurance issuer should use data at the “plan” level (as opposed to the “product” level) to perform the substantially all and

The Medicare set-aside requirement is intended to prevent workers' compensation insurers from shifting the expense of the claimant's future medical treatment to Medicare. It is therefore only a hindrance to settlement when the settlement is intended to include compensation for future medical expenses. Some states have enacted workers' compensation laws that permit the settlement of only the indemnity portion of the claim, ending the insurer's liability for that portion while leaving the medical aspect of the claim open. In such instances, the insurer remains liable for the claimant's future medical treatment, and there is therefore no potential for shifting the cost to Medicare. As such, Medicare

For the first time in history, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to simply tell a person “no”. They will be required to offer coverage and accommodate regardless of a person’s health status, and they will not be able to jack up rates or drop any one from coverage when the main person in the insurance packet gets sick.

As stated above, 11.4% of the population is still uninsured or under-insured. Of these patients, 40% have outstanding medical bills that will most likely go unpaid to the providers (3). This equated to $74.9 billion in 2013 of total uncompensated care across hospital systems and community providers (4). Not surprisingly, hospitals took the brunt of this cost at 60%, equaling $45 billion in uncompensated care. This raises the question of whether providers or other organizations can supplement the already subsidized monthly premiums. In theory, this model would be a win-win for the patient and provider, such that the patient stays covered and the provider is reimbursed for their

The 401(k) plan is usually at the back of a plan sponsor’s mind. It doesn’t renew annually, and it never fights for attention like health insurance and business insurance renewals do. However, it’s time to bring that afterthought to the forefront. With the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Fiduciary Rule, a litany of class action lawsuits and the fact that 65 percent of DOL audits in 2014 resulted in plan sponsor fines; there is a certain level of responsibility expected of plan sponsors. The DOL Fiduciary Rule is the byproduct of many of these class action suits, years of haggling with Wall Street to close loopholes that have existed since 1940, and the Obama administration’s desire to bring objective advice to plan sponsors and participants alike. Over the next year, before the regulation comes into effect in April 2017, plan sponsors have important decisions to make, and it’s vital to understand what options there are moving forward.

Education of members on plan benefits and how to access appropriate level of care for these patients

The outrageous cost of medical care in the United States is one of the greatest disadvantages of our system. Costs are rising at a faster past than most other expenses. Managed care systems were created to reduce costs, and this meant that physicians no longer are autonomous practitioners in their own independent offices. Health maintenance organization (HMO) and preferred provider organization (PPO) are the most common examples. In HMO subscriber pay a set fee to be a patient in return for an agreement that the HMO will cover all the patient’s medical care at no additional cost. The HMO has an incentive to keep the patient as healthy as possible by providing preventative health care because they make the most profit when patients are healthy. As a result HMO’s try to cover younger, healthy subscribers who are less likely to become sick. The other main organization PPO, contracts with physicians who become “preferred providers”. Patients who enroll in the PPO receive better coverage if they are to see only doctors