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The dilemma of providing competitive employee healthcare while adhering to strict overhead budgets can be a never-ending challenge for many nonprofits. This is especially true for community health centers, which often struggle to provide their staff with the very thing their missions stand for – quality, affordable healthcare.

Photo: NACHC CHV

Today’s competitive job market makes recruitment and retention tricky for many organizations, but even more so for community health centers (CHCs) as they battle against physician shortages, high turnover, and an inability to compete with compensation. And while employee healthcare is a highly-valued benefit, many CHCs struggle to find the budget to accommodate a high-quality, affordable plan that appeals to the staff most needed at these organizations.

Photo: NACHC Community Health Ventures

This month Nonstop announced a partnership with Community Health Ventures (CHV), business affiliate of the National Association of Community Health Centers, to offer its risk-free partially self—insured program Nonstop Wellness to community health centers (CHCs) around the US as part of CHV’s Value in Benefits (ViB) pilot program. Nonstop Wellness provides an immediate reduction in premiums and employee out-of-pocket costs, as well as improved and customized benefit plans.  

Photo: Villanova.edu

When a new hire is made, there is often a litany of paperwork and to-dos that need to be completed, especially around tax and healthcare-related activities. With the ACA, it’s even more imperative to be compliant with documents and timing.

Photo: Dallas CTC

Mindfulness has become the new buzzword of late, touted by Fortune 500 companies, parents, the US military, and schools (just to name a few) as the answer to burnout, behavior problems, and anxiety. But the thing is – it’s more than a buzzword or the latest trend. On top of thousands of years of history, we now have thousands of pages of research proving that mindfulness actually is a solution to many of the woes of modern day society.

Photo: Leblanc Law and Mediation

A recent CFO survey by Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) highlights the importance of CFO involvement in employee healthcare decisions. While cost control tops the list of CFO goals around healthcare at 44%, other top-of-mind goals include recruitment and retention (36% rank this as the most important goal), helping employees make smarter healthcare choices, and increasing worker productivity. Of those surveyed, 43% say they are equal partners with their HR department in making healthcare decisions.

In 2015, ADP conducted a survey of executives from mid-market organizations (50-999 employees) and the challenges they are facing in today’s business climate. Not surprisingly, concerns around the ACA were high on the list, more than likely for those organizations with 50-99 employees that will be required to comply with the ACA’s “pay or play” employee mandate for the first time in 2016.

Photo: tribune.com.pk

For some people working out is an energy booster, but for others it’s more of a chore.  And still for others it becomes a matter of fitting a workout into busy work/travel or family schedules. But whether you love it or hate it, getting in a daily shot of fitness is a requirement for staying healthy. Luckily these days there are a million ways to get your workout into a daily routine without ever getting bored. And even better most can be found online, and are either completely free or offer free trials so you can test the waters before committing. 

Photo: peachstatefcublog

Health Policy Brief: High-Deductible Health Plans, a new policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlights the growing popularity of high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and how they are impacting the healthcare market. The debate centers on whether HDHPs actually help reduce spending, especially the 30 percent that the Institute of Medicine calls “a waste,” but at the same time don’t prevent consumers from using insurance for necessary treatments.

January is over, which means for most of us those well-intentioned resolutions are out the window and we are back to our ever-prevailing habits. But at the same time, healthy exercise habits and weight loss are still top-of-mind and highly desired goals. And not just for us – universities and employers are also starting to demand to know the weight and fitness routines of their students and employees. While this may not be the best way to entice people to lose weight, the reality is that more than one-third of the adult US population is considered obese, which costs our healthcare system billions and billions of dollars each year.