The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed the medical care landscape over the past few months. It has particularly affected outpatient care. Understandably, patients are avoiding doctors and hospitals due to fears that they could become infected with COVID-19. But health care providers are now stressing the importance of continuing to seek medical care in urgent or emergency situations.

Here’s what you need to know about declining health care visits and the signs and symptoms that require emergency care.

As more and more unprecedented pandemic and social-unrest milestones drench our organizations’ culture, Benefits professionals are uniquely and consummately positioned to make a difference for your workforce.

Despite these crises, we have already-budgeted resources and messages that programmatically communicate to employees that we care about their wellbeing. Using some of the following suggestions, things we communicate are the best support to leaders for demonstrating their understanding of the challenging, often painful and distracting, circumstances faced by your workforce today.

There is more going on this annual enrollment than in past years. New factors are at play that will influence employees’ benefit decisions. As you begin your planning, it’s important to start by reflecting on the current situation with all that it entails (i.e. telecommuting, increased anxiety, job security concerns, etc.) and understand how it affects your employees and adapt your approach accordingly.

Here are 5 tips to consider before rolling out your annual enrollment communications:

Open Enrollment will soon be upon us. With the state of the world today, it’s essential that employees make the right choices to protect themselves and their families for the coming year (or longer). 

Many employers think of workplace financial wellbeing in the post-paycheck sense: spending, saving, budgeting, and staying out of debt. However, Open Enrollment is when the pre-paycheck money magic happens. Are you leveraging financial wellbeing to educate your employees about their benefits? Help employees – both active and furloughed – feel financially empowered about the big benefits decisions ahead by engaging all employees this fall. Here’s what to look for in a financial wellbeing program that will really move the needle during the upcoming 2020 Open Enrollment season.

A tried-and-true technique for annual enrollment education has been the benefits fair. Employees love them for getting the information they need, along with some freebies.  Unfortunately, benefits fairs don’t lend themselves to a public health crisis where people are working remotely, social distancing is the norm and congregating in groups is curtailed.  

One option to consider is the virtual benefits fair.  Tech-enabled benefits fairs aren’t new. They take advantage of applications that can host multiple types of content as well as live and recorded events to build on the best components of an in-person fair. 

Gender disparities in the workplace usually center around income inequality or glass ceiling inequities; however, men are less likely to fully participate in an employer-offered wellness program than women. A white paper written by the health services company Optum reported that women take advantage of workplace health screenings, weight management, health coaching, and web-based wellness programs more frequently than men. The survey reports men are more likely to get employer-sponsored flu shots and participate in smoking cessation programs. So, what steps can you take to engage men in your wellness program, especially now that so many employees are working remotely?

As consumers struggle with the economic squeeze that the COVID-19 pandemic has put on their finances, it’s important for employers to communicate how their employees’ benefits may have been impacted by recent government relief efforts. This includes changes incurred by the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and its impact on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).

Over-the-counter products are now eligible expenses

The Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) is updating its Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) regulations (458 CMR 2.00).

The Department has published information on the formal comment period including information on how public hearings will be conducted. 

As with many workplace issues, managers and supervisors occupy a place on the front lines of each workplace. They are responsible for directing and supervising day-to-day work and may be the only ones to lay eyes on employees. Managing remotely has created many challenges and there will be new challenges when employees return to the workplace. At this point, how to address those may involve more questions than answers.

Since most of us have not experienced a pandemic, what we know about managing them comes from research into past traumatic events. Some patterns of behavior and impact are common to epidemics such as SARS, H1N1, and various flu epidemics. We also learned something about return to work issues post-9/11. History has shown that businesses need to anticipate workforce problems as people return to work. Here are 12 challenges that managers and supervisors may face in the future.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we find each day brings new information and challenges. But sometimes, all we want (and need) are answers. Read how you can assist your employees during this uncertain time.

Question 1: Can employees change their FSA elections?
Under current rules, employees are permitted to make FSA election changes when they have a qualifying event. For those getting married or having a baby, the distinction might be easy.

Various retirement, health and welfare and fringe benefit related changes have come out of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act) and other relief that has been provided by the Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor and/or the Department of Health and Human Services.

Retirement Plan Liquidity Options
In the CARES Act, Congress made 4 key changes that apply generally to tax-favored retirement vehicles: 

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and increasing mandates for people to remain at home, organizations are having to rethink ways to continue operations. What was once considered a nice-to-have benefit has now become the new normal for many Americans – remote working. What’s surprising to many organizations is how effective remote and flexible working can be. When we get back to business as usual, it will be interesting to see how many organizations continue to offer these benefits as our research indicates considerable value, even in normal times.

Our Research
Over the past few months, Fidelity Investments® conducted two studies on how employers and employees value their benefits. From the employer research that we conducted in 2019, we saw that offering flex-time was one of the most valuable benefits to improve an organization’s recruitment rates, as employees are looking to work with progressive employers that understand that having authentic work-life balance is important.

On March 13, 2020, the President issued a determination under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the “Stafford Act”). A consequence of that action is that payments from employers to employees that meet the requirements of a qualified disaster relief payment under Internal Revenue Code Section 139 are excludible from income, a rather unusual result, for the reasons discussed below. Although Section 139 cannot be used to exempt income replacement payments (wages), other amounts may be considered exempt.

Background – The tax law has long wrestled with the issue of when various payments are subject to income tax in light of the general rule that gross income means all income from whatever source derived. Various exceptions to taxation have existed over the years for payments in disaster-related situations. A “general welfare” exception, for example, excludes from income payments made by a governmental unit under a social benefit program designed to promote the general welfare. This exception has been relied on in excluding federal and state payments to disaster victims. In a similar vein, relief payments made by charities are generally not taxable because the tax law views those payments as gifts.

It was just a few weeks ago – although it hardly seems possible – that HR departments had more mundane concerns on their minds, such as how to attract and retain talent in a time of low unemployment rates. Today’s pandemic concerns make these worries appear trite, but the tactics that forward-thinking employers are using to stand apart from their competition is worth celebrating. I hope these strategies not only give you inspiration but also put a smile on your face during these difficult times. 
— Be well, Cindy McGrath

It’s a bleak time with ever-changing news on the coronavirus pandemic. Human Resources Departments are under stress as they navigate the ramifications to their company’s workforce and personal lives. In the midst of this crisis, here’s some positive benefits news to consider when we return to our new reality. 

Want to improve your bottom line and help your employees live healthier lives? Encourage them to take care of their teeth and gums. A 2018 study found that not being able to afford dental care was associated with more work hours lost to unplanned dental visits, and that cost is the number-one reason adults skip dental care¹. These lost employee work hours can have a big impact on your company’s overall productivity.

March 20 marks World Oral Health Day – an annual reminder that taking care of your mouth is critical to taking care of your overall health and well-being, particularly at this time. As an employer, you can play a key role in helping to improve health outcomes for your employees by prioritizing oral health care in your organization. Solutions that make dental care affordable for employees, such as dental benefits that include preventive care, along with policies that make it easy for employees to make and keep dental care appointments, are a great place to start.

We want to share with you our views on some benefits-related questions affecting group health plans recently posed by employers dealing with the coronavirus.

HIPAA in the Age of COVID-19 – In February, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance reminding covered entities and health care providers of their HIPAA privacy obligations. Because a group health plan is a "covered entity" for this purpose, the plan cannot generally share information with the plan sponsor/employer about who, for example, is getting tested or what the results of the test may be.

Employers are obligated to maintain a safe and healthy work environment for their employees but are also subject to a number of legal/compliance requirements protecting workers. For example, employers must comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in their approach to dealing with COVID-19.  

As the number of reported cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to rise, employers are increasingly confronted with the possibility of an outbreak in the workplace.

Healthcare is one of America’s most dysfunctional and confusing industries, and women bear the brunt of the problem when it comes to both access and treatment. Women, who make 80 percent of healthcare decisions for their families,¹ are disproportionately impacted by the complex nature of our healthcare system—but are also uniquely poised to fix it. 

Through my work as the Founder and CEO of Day Health Strategies, my many years as a personal activist and now, as the author of a new book, Marching Toward Coverage – How Women Can Lead the Fight for Universal Healthcare,² I endeavor to help transform healthcare.  I hope to do so in part by inspiring a groundswell of activism, led by everyday women, that can create the incentives our political leaders need to change course.

I was honored to moderate NEEBC’s annual Health Insurance Market Outlook (HIMO) again this year. HIMO is a thought-provoking review and analysis of the health insurance marketplace from the perspectives of a national keynote speaker and a wide array of local, regional and national health insurers. 

This year's program kicked off with a keynote by Ellen Kelsay, Chief Strategy Officer and Future President & CEO of the National Business Group on Health (NBGH)*. Ellen provided insight into large employers’ views on the rapidly changing health care environment and shared critical benchmarking information on health care cost, plan design trends and employer initiatives and priorities.  Her keynote was based on data collected from the NBGH’s 2019 survey of large corporations in America.