For a customized wellness program designed around your specific needs, demographics and budget, please give us a call. A solid incentive based platform with quality communications can reap automatic returns on any wellness investment and thus lower costs and absenteeism.

Live Well. Be Well.

The Personal Best newsletter will now be a monthly value-added service from Muneris Benefits. Our contract with Oakstone Publishing allows you to forward the newsletter to your employees in the PDF format. While the newsletter is not a substitute for daily exercise and eating the right foods, it does a great job of addressing things such as nutrition, fitness, risk alerts, and timely articles that we hope will provide your employees with valuable insight.

Remember, your health insurance costs are a reflection of not only the overall cost of health care in America but your specific demographics and risk. If we can help one employee stave off breast cancer, if we can help one employee lower their diabetic risk, if we can help one employee to ensure a full-term pregnancy, we have saved not only a ton money but maybe a life as well.

The January issue of Personal Best is chock full of healthy tidbits from iron deficiencies, to the best cholesterol lowering diet to quick facts regarding off-label drugs. We wish you the best in 2012. We thank you for your continued support of our agency and hope you and your employees maximize our earnest attempt to help you control health care costs.

We are excited to have been selected to represent their products and look forward in helping to bring more competition to the health insurance market. For more information regarding Optima Health, feel free to give us a call at 540-726-8008 or 540-563-1005.

On behalf of Muneris, Burman Clark recently participated in the EXPAND! contest sponsored by the Roanoke Regional Entrepreneur Center. The winner will receive feedback to help build or expand their business and more than $25,000 to implement the ideas. With over 150 businesses competing, Muneris was chosen as a Top 20 Finalist.

Burman Clark of Muneris Benefits Enters The Expand Contest

The Top 20 Businesses then advanced to the Semi-Finals Round competition where they presented their business pitch to the five panelists at PBS Studios before a live audience. Each business owner had 5 minutes to tell the panel about their business and how they will grow if they win the contest. The panel then had ten minutes to question the contestant. Once all contestants had presented, the panel will then select one business from each of the five teams to advance to the Final round of competition.

Burman’s reaction to presenting for the Final 5…

Owner of Muneris Highly Recommends Entrepreneurs Enter The Next Expand Contest

The Top 5 Finalists will be announced on October 11th. Wish us luck!

Among the major drugs on the list for the next year include:

• Lipitor, the most popular cholesterol drug, goes generic in two months
• Solodyn, used to treat bacterial infections, November
• Zyprexa, which treats schizophrenia, October
• Lexapro, used to treat depression, March, 2012
• Provigil, used to treat sleep problems, April, 2012
• Plavix, an antiplatelet drug which prevents blood clots, May, 2012
• Singulair, an Asthma drug, August, 2012

There is no clear indication how much cheaper the generic drugs will be within the next six months but good news is on the horizon.  A 20mg prescription for Lipitor costs $186.00, 75mg of Plavix runs $215, 10mg Singulair is $182.00 and Zyprexa runs more than $400 all for a 30-day supply.  If history repeats itself we can look no further than Prozac, the wonder drug of the 90s which at one time sold for $200 per month is now $16 in the generic form.

Helping your employees understand how to maximize their drug card not only saves the patient money, but softens the blow on your group health insurance experience which has been dominated by prescription drug runaway expenses during the past ten years.  For more information concerning how to lower your health care costs, please do not hesitate to give us a call.

We believe this piece of legislation is good for the consumer.  As health insurance exchanges become closer to a reality in 2014, having a simple and concise summary of benefits for consumers to compare will only help the uninsured with a complex insurance purchase.  For questions concerning health care reform, please do not hesitate to give us a call.

• Well woman visits covered annually
• Screening for gestational diabetes – covered between 24 and 28 weeks and immediately for high risk patients
• HPV tests should be begin at age 30 and covered every 3 years
• Annually counseling for sexually transmitted diseases
• Contraception approved methods by the FDA.
• Breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling – in conjunction with each birth
• Screening for interpersonal and domestic violence on an annual basis

Remember, any new expansions of coverage will not occur until your group health care plan renews on or after August 1st, 2012. Some services such as annual well visits and gestational diabetes is already covered. Please feel free to calls should you have any questions concerning health care reform.

Please visit http://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/ for more information.

While HIPAA has been in existence for 15 years, confusion abounds as it relates to the new Affordable Care Act.  HIPAA limits the pre-existing condition look back period to only six months and limits a pre-existing condition to a 12- month period.  The 12 –month pre-existing condition period can be reduced by the number of months of “creditable coverage” an employee had before the new group health plan coverage begins.  Remember, the group imposed waiting period has no impact on creditable coverage meaning the employee could still receive credit even if he/she didn’t have coverage during the group imposed waiting period.  For example, employee has been covered under a former employer plan, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, or Tricare plan for at least 12 months.  Employee comes to work and has to satisfy his/her waiting period (let’s assume a 90-day waiting period). Because the employee had prior coverage and no more than a 63 day break in coverage before insurance coverage ended and the group imposed waiting period began, the employee has no pre-existing conditions.

Insurance carriers only use full-time status for eligibility purposes for HIPAA credit.  For example, employee loses coverage with former employer and had been covered for 12 months, comes to work for new employer part-time and then moves to full-time.  If the time between part-time and full-time was greater than 63 days and the employee did not continue former plan through COBRA, then the employee could be subject to new pre-existing conditions.  Sounds confusing?  It is.
The Affordable Care Act excludes any pre-existing conditions for any child less than age 19 and HIPAA excludes pregnancy as a pre-existing condition.  The Affordable Care Act will exclude pre-existing conditions for everyone in 2014.  While HIPAA passed to make it easier for folks to switch jobs without fear of losing heath coverage for pre-existing conditions, the law does have limitations. Until then, understanding the HIPAA rules and how it applies to the new Affordable Care Act can be a daunting task.  For more information, please do not hesitate to give Muneris Benefits a call.