employee health Archives

What Are the Deadlines for Open Enrollment 2023?

by Sam Johnson | Sep 21, 2022 | Blog

What are the deadlines for open enrollment 2023? Help your employees understand their options during this critical period. Here are all the dates and deadlines to know.

The open enrollment period comes around every fall as a time for many Americans to opt into an insurance plan for the upcoming year.

Open enrollment 2023 is a critical time for your employees to review their existing insurance coverage and make decisions that will affect their family throughout the following year. For important information relating to enrollment periods and qualifications for special enrollment, read below.

When is open enrollment 2023?

In the majority of states, the open enrollment period for health coverage that begins on January 1, 2023, is November 1, 2022 to January 15, 2023. In order to guarantee coverage that begins on January 1, 2023, employees must enroll by December 15, 2022.

However, many states have different time periods for when people are allowed to enroll so it is essential to keep up with your state’s rules and regulations.

These are states that have different dates than those listed above:

California: November 1, 2022 through January 31, 2023
Idaho: October 15, 2022 through December 15, 2022
Massachusetts: November 1, 2022 through January 23, 2023
New Jersey: November 1, 2022 through January 31, 2023
New York: November 16, 2022 – Enrollment open through the end of the ongoing COVID pandemic
Rhode Island: November 1, 2022 through January 31, 2023
Washington DC: November 1, 2022 through January 31, 2023

Other Dates and Special Enrollment Periods to be Aware of

In the past 60 days you had one of these household changes:
- Marriage
- Having a baby, adopting a child or placing a child for foster care
- Legally separated or divorced causing a loss of health insurance
- Someone on your Marketplace plan dies
Changes in residence, including:
- Moving to a new ZIP code or county
- Moving to the United States from a foreign country
- For students, moving to or from a place that you are attending school
- For seasonal workers, moving to or from a place you live and work
- Moving to or from a shelter or other types of transitional housing
If you or a member of your household lost health insurance in the 60 days prior to enrollment (or more than 60 days ago and before January 1, 2020)
If you are a member of your household were recently employed and gained access to an individual coverage HRA or a Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement in the past 60 days or expect to in the next 60 days
Becoming a member of a federally recognized tribe
Beginning or ending service as a AmeriCorps State and National, VISTA, or NCCC member
Recently became a U.S. citizen
Leaving incarceration

For more information and updated information about the open enrollment period, refer to healthcare.gov.

To learn more about Best Money Moves Financial Wellness Platform, let’s schedule a call. Contact us and we’ll reach out to you soon.

How Does Financial Wellness Affect Health?

by LizStevens | Jul 10, 2019 | Blog

How does financial wellness affect health? Recent research looks at the link between financial stress, health and how financial wellness programs can help.

Several recent studies ask how finances affect the health of employees and some researchers took it a step further to examine how financial wellness programs correlate with better health outcomes.

According to a new survey by Bankrate, money worries are the biggest cause of sleep loss and it’s getting worse. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. adults are losing sleep worrying about everyday expenses, saving for retirement and healthcare costs.

“Sleep greatly impacts mental health and physical health, and mental health also impacts sleep,” Dr. Gail Saltz, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical College, “Not getting enough sleep can impact mood, increase depression and increase anxiety.”

Financial Stress Affects the Health of Employees

Money causes the most stress in the lives of almost 60 percent of employees, according to a report by PwC. It was the top choice for life stressor across all generations, well ahead of issues with jobs, relationships, and health. More than 30 percent of employees say their health has been impacted by their financial worries.

Merrill Edge looked at how Americans with significant investable assets feel about their finances for their recent report. The majority of these relatively financially secure Americans say managing their finances impacts their mental and physical health (59 percent and 56 percent, respectively). Roughly 40 percent of mass affluent Americans would give up all social media platforms forever or cut carbs, sugar and/or alcohol if they never have to manage their personal finances again.

Financial Wellness Programs for Better Health

When PwC asked respondents what employer benefit they don’t currently have but would like, one in four employees said they want a financial wellness program with an unbiased counselor. Financial wellness programs are in high demand but the one thing employers want to know is if they work and recent research suggests they do.

Close to 30 percent of employees without access to financial wellness benefits say they worry a lot about current and future finances, according to research by Prudential. Among those with access to financial wellness, worries about current and future finances drop to less than 20 percent. Nearly 60 percent of workers who use financial wellness programs consider their overall mental health “good,” and those numbers fall to 55 percent for those who don’t use financial wellness programs.

According to the Prudential report, “These findings add to the body of literature that suggests that financial and physical health are often intertwined, and that employers who help their employees on both fronts stand the best chance of achieving the benefits that wellness programs can offer: healthier, happier, more productive employees whose physical and emotional health may lead to lower rates of absenteeism, fewer delayed retirements, and reduced levels of employee turnover, healthcare costs and employee disability.”

More on Financial Wellness and Employee Health

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees?

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Financial Wellbeing & Its Role in a Complete Employee Wellbeing Program

What’s Wrong With Wellness Program Incentives?

by LizStevens | Dec 4, 2018 | Blog

What’s wrong with wellness program incentives? ROI isn’t proven, employees feel forced into participation, and worse, wellness programs can increase weight-based discrimination and stigma in the workplace, which results in increased obesity and decreased well-being.

Workplace wellness programs have long been criticized as ineffective and lacking ROI, but financial incentives for wellness program participation are even more controversial.

Depending on what the financial incentive is, failing to participate could cost an employee hundreds or thousands of dollars. It then becomes a question of whether participation is truly voluntary, or if employees are being coerced.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) set a limit for what employers could offer employees to join in on wellness programs in 2016 (30 percent of an employee’s health insurance costs). Earlier this year, a judge vacated that arbitrary limit and the EEOC said it would not produce a new number until 2021.

That means there aren’t specific guidelines for employers putting together next year’s wellness benefits to follow. It’s worth considering whether incentivizing program participation is a good idea or just a waste of money.

New research from Frontiers in Psychology found wellness programs can actually lead to increased obesity and decreased well-being. Programs that put the responsibility on employees made them believe their weight is blameworthy. It led to increased weight-based discrimination and stigma in the workplace, a consequence surely no employer intended.

Wellness programs framed from an organizational standpoint were able to avoid increased stigma. What does that look like? An employer providing healthy snacks, standing desks, or offering reimbursements for gym memberships gives employees opportunities to improve their health without shaming them, versus ‘biggest loser’ challenges that are sure to make employees more self-conscious and could fuel disordered eating habits.

Employers look to wellness programs to reduce astronomical healthcare costs and take back some of the $530 billion that poor employee health costs in lost productivity from nearly 1.4 billion days of missed work each year. However, most employers now realize offering wellness programs isn’t enough. Employee engagement with wellness benefits is low, which is why providing a financial incentive for participation seems like a great idea (and in some cases, it still can be).

Nearly 20 percent of employees are either unaware of or don’t understand how to use the wellness benefits their employer offers. Clear benefits communication is vital to program success, and a process to improve before offering financial incentives for participation. Employees need to know what’s being offered, and more importantly how it works and who to contact if they have questions.

Unless conflicting research emerges proving significant ROI for employers who provide wellness benefits initiatives, employers are better off spending those funds elsewhere. A focus on improving benefits communication and creating a culture that encourages healthy habits has the potential to boost job satisfaction, productivity and reduce employer healthcare costs. Organizational and procedural changes might require some effort, but they’re low-cost solutions to the issue of benefits engagement.