Wearable fitness devices have been a hot topic in health and wellness for a few years now, but what kind of impact have wearables really had on improving health outcomes? Wearable fitness devices can be used to track physical activity, sleep, heart rate, and even provide on-screen workouts. They are most often paired with a smartphone or website to track and store data. There has been a lot of hype about the potential to promote positive health outcomes through using wearables, but a recent study suggests they may not be impacting health as expected.
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Topics:
wellness,
LHD Benefit Advisors,
UBA Health Plan Survey,
Vital Incite,
wearable fitness devices,
weight loss program,
wellness monitoring,
Kaycee Eaton
Historically, employers have utilized health risk assessments (HRAs) as one measurement tool in wellness program design. The main goals of an HRA are to assess individual health status and risk and provide feedback to participants on how to manage risk. Employers have traditionally relied on this type of assessment to evaluate the overall health risk of their population in order to develop appropriate wellness strategies.
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Topics:
wellness,
health risk assessment,
LHD Benefit Advisors,
UBA Health Plan Survey,
biometric screening,
population health strategy,
outcome-based wellness programs,
Sierra Sullivan
While wellness programs and offerings continue to evolve among new trends and regulations, there are seven key components that tend to drive the most successful and effective programs we have seen with our clients.
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Topics:
employee wellness,
wellness incentives,
wellness programs,
LHD Benefit Advisors,
Jennifer Jones,
disease management
Historically, companies have struggled with the best way to package and deliver benefits to attract talent and retain staff. Today, companies understand that they need to leverage a variety of solutions to provide meaningful healthcare coverage, promote wellbeing and mitigate cost. UBA Partners offer innovative product and service solutions to identify medical spend waste and improve efficient spend, allowing employers to reinvest in the correct resources that will improve employee health. For one mid-sized manufacturer, UBA Partner LHD Benefit Advisors used Vital Incite risk scoring tools to coordinate efforts between the employer HR and C-suite, the advisor and the population health consultant.
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Topics:
LHD Benefit Advisors,
population health strategy,
healthcare savings,
Vital Incite,
Jennifer Jones,
healthcare risk mitigation
As our recent press release addressed, DOL audits are on the rise. Not many things incite more fear than receiving a notice that you’re about to have an audit, especially from the DOL. The Department of Labor (DOL) is a cabinet-level department of the U.S. federal government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. It is headed by the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
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Topics:
Department of Labor,
white papers,
LHD Benefit Advisors,
Jeff Hadden,
Michael Cramer,
Audit,
Don't Roll the Dice on Department of Labor Audits,
Deanna Johnson,
Beneflex Insurance Services,
Benefit Insurance Marketing
We’ve already discussed Health Savings Account (HSA) activity at length, looking first at the correlation between generous HSA contributions and increased enrollment in consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs). Second, we looked at how HSAs have performed in recent years across different industries. Now, we’ll look closer at HSA activity across different regions of the country, based on the results of the 2014 UBA Health Plan Survey.
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Topics:
health plan benchmarking,
CDHPs,
health savings accounts,
HSA,
consumer-driven health plan,
HSA funding,
Kaminsky & Associates,
LHD Benefit Advisors,
UBA Health Plan Survey,
Mark Sherman,
Brian M. Goff,
Andrea Kinkade