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Your Monthly
Newsletter from Integrated Benefit Solutions
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August 2019
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Executive Order on Health Costs to Affect Employer
Health Plans
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 President Donald Trump recently signed an
executive order aimed at improving price and quality transparency
in health care. The order is intended to increase availability of
health care price and quality information and protect patients
from surprise medical bills.
What’s in
the Order?
Specifically, the order is aimed at:
- Eliminating unnecessary
barriers to price and quality transparency
- Increasing the availability
of meaningful price and quality information for patients
- Enhancing patients' control
over their own health care resources, including through
tax-preferred medical accounts
- Protecting patients from
surprise medical bills
Employer Impact
Within 120 days, the order directs the Treasury to issue guidance
to expand access to high deductible health plans. Additionally,
the order directs the Treasury to propose regulations within 180
days to:
- Treat expenses related to
certain types of arrangements—potentially including direct
primary care arrangements and health care sharing
ministries—as eligible medical expenses
- Increase the amount of funds
that can carry over without penalty at the end of the year
for flexible spending accounts
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Why You Should Be Encouraging Employees to Use PTO
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 Research consistently points to time away from
work as improving productivity, lowering stress and reducing
absenteeism.
Unfortunately, many employees still hold onto their paid time off
(PTO) and end up losing much of it at the end of the year. Worse
yet, many employees avoid taking time off because their workplace
culture discourages it.
According to research group Project: Time Off, workers are much
happier at companies that encourage time off versus those that
don’t—68% to 42%, respectively. Couple that with the fact that
81% of employers agree PTO helps curb burnout and improves focus,
and it seems obvious that you should be pushing workers to use
their vacation time.
This summer, let employees know that it’s okay to use their PTO
and that, in fact, they should! Doing so can actually
help your organization.
Consider sending communication to help employees understand the
benefits of taking time off. Moreover, make sure they know that
using PTO is not only acceptable, it’s also encouraged.
Getting your workforce comfortable with taking PTO is the first
step to improving aspects like productivity and stress levels.
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Final Rule Expands Options for HRAs
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 Health officials issued a final rule that expands
the usability of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).
Effective in 2020, the final rule establishes two new types of
HRAs:
Individual
Coverage HRA:
Allows employers to offer an HRA to be used to reimburse the cost
of individual market premiums on a tax-preferred basis, subject
to certain conditions, as an alternative to traditional group
health plan coverage.
Excepted
Benefits HRA:
Allows employers that offer traditional group coverage to provide
an HRA of up to $1,800 per year (as adjusted) to reimburse
certain qualified medical expenses.
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Retain Employees Through Training
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With the daily demands of keeping a workplace
productive and profitable, many managers may overlook one simple perk
that has been proven to boost employee retention: professional
training. Learn how to use training as a tool to retain your top
employees by watching the video below.
For
more training tips, check out our HR Training section.
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