The Internal Revenue Service today issued a consumer alert regarding a new, two-step e-mail scam that falsely promises recipients they will receive $80 for participating in an online customer satisfaction survey.

As part of the scam, unsuspecting taxpayers receive an unsolicited e-mail that appears to come from the IRS. The e-mail contains a URL linking to an online “Member Satisfaction Survey.” The e-mail notifies the recipient that he or she has been randomly selected to participate in a survey. In return, the IRS will credit $80 to the taxpayer’s account. In addition to standard customer satisfaction survey questions, the survey requests the name and phone number of the participant, as well as for credit card information.

Taxpayers should be aware that the IRS does not send unsolicited e-mail. Additionally, the IRS never asks taxpayers for PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

Did you know that you could retire with more money and reduce your current taxable income!  Challenge yourself to increase the amount you’re putting into your employer’s retirement plan by one percent or more each year and you could potentially boost your retirement savings by thousands of dollars!  See for yourself with this example.

AARP's Benefits QuickLINK website that helps people apply for state, federal and private benefits, has added new features.

Starting this month, you can apply online at www.aarp.org/quicklink for Medicare Rx Extra Help, a prescription drug assistance program for limited-income beneficiaries.  New, too, are public-benefits fact sheets for each state and an Applications Forms Center that lets you print applications for some 250 benefits programs.  (Source - AARP Bulletin April 2008)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today released the first ranking of the nation’s poor-performing nursing homes.

Release of the national list of facilities, identified as special focus facilities (SFFs), is expected to offer individuals, seeking long-term health care services, and their families powerful new information when choosing nursing homes.  To read more about this click here.

The new Medicare premiums and deductibles have been announced for 2008.  To read more about these changes click here.

Universal Life insurance offers an inexpensive alternative for providing permanent protection.  Many carriers offer this type of policy with a guaranteed death benefit up to age 120.

Is it time to review your life insurance coverage?  Contact Brent Price at Albers & Company for information or to review your policy.

The average daily cost of a private room in a nursing home in the Unites States is $203 per day or $74,095 annually according to the annual MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home & Home Care Costs, conducted by the company’s Mature Market Institute®. The cost represents a 5.7% increase from last year’s $192. The highest rates, once again, were reported in Alaska where the cost is $531 per day.

Seattle, Washington reported $249 per day. Factoring in an average stay of 2 years & 4 months; this means that the cost of an average stay in a Seattle nursing home could add up to a whopping $218,000! If you apply an inflation rate of 5% (the actual 20-year trend rate is slightly higher), you can anticipate this expense doubling within 15 years!

A 55 year old Baby Boomer could reasonably anticipate paying $578,000 if they required care in 20 years! Long-term care insurance offers an affordable solution to protect you against a potentially devastating blow to your retirement nest egg.

For more information about long-term care, go to www.albersltc.com. If you have specific questions, we can help! Contact Brent Price here at Albers & Company at (253) 596-0613.

The DOL recently unveiled a new elaws Employment Law Advisor to help employers determine which federal employment laws apply to them, what recordkeeping and reporting requirements they must comply with, and what posters they need to post. The website guidance addresses issues related to ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA portability, the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act, the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act, FMLA, and USERRA, among other laws.

The Employment Law Advisor consists of three separate advisors which, by asking a series of questions, simulate an interactive conversation with a DOL expert and guide users to customized information for each law. The Employment Law Overview Advisor provides a short primer on each law's basic provisions and any related recordkeeping, reporting, and notice requirements. Through a series of questions about an employer's size of business, location, and type of industry, this advisor determines which federal employment laws apply to the employer.  The Recordkeeping, Reporting, and Notices Advisor summarizes each law's recordkeeping, reporting, and notice requirements. The Poster Advisor provides access to short descriptions of DOL poster requirements and links to printable posters. It also provides information on where the posters must be displayed in the workplace, and applicable size and language requirements. Click here to access this tool. 

Congress enacted a law (Section 6202 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989) to provide the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly the Health Care Financing Administration, with better information about Medicare beneficiaries' group health plan (GHP) coverage.

The law requires the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration SSA), and CMS to share information that each agency has about whether Medicare beneficiaries or their spouses are working. The process for sharing this information is called the IRS/SSA/CMS Data Match.

The purpose of the Data Match is to identify situations where another payer may be primary to Medicare.

Employers are required to complete a questionnaire that requests GHP information on identified workers who are either entitled to Medicare or married to a Medicare beneficiary. This information is used to identify the primary and secondary payers for medical services provided to a Medicare beneficiary. This process helps Medicare identify claims on an ongoing basis for which Medicare should not be the primary payer.

The Data Match Project has saved the Medicare Trust Funds more than 3.5 billion dollars to date.

If you are an employer that has recently received this Data Match questionnaire, you can use this guide book as a reference tool for how to complete the questionnaire.  If you have additional questions feel free to contact us for assistance.

President Bush signed into law in late January an expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which will benefit Employees with family service in the U.S. Armed Forces, including the National Guard and Reserves.

Effective immediately, FMLA requires businesses to offer up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave to Employees who are providing care to a close family member (defined as a spouse, a son, a daughter, a parent, or other next of kin) who is ill or injured in the line of duty.

In addition FMLA now requires Employers to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to Employees who are close family members of a person serving in the Armed Forces who has a “qualifying exigency”.

“Qualifying exigency” is not defined, but the intent appears to be to permit a spouse, a son, a daughter, a parent or other next of kin to take leave to deal with the issues surrounding a close family member being on active duty or being called to active duty.

Nothing official has yet been posted to the Department of Labor’s website, but we will continue to monitor this issue for you and keep you informed.

When the rules created by this expansion to FMLA are clearer, plan documents will be amended to bring each plan into compliance.  In the meantime, you will need to comply with the intent of these changes immediately.

Please contact Albers & Company, Inc. if you have questions or concerns.

The new law, Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2661, adds "sexual orientation" to the list of classes protected from discrimination.  This new law goes into effect on June 7, 2006.  Groups should be aware that RCW 49.60.180(3) states that "it is unfair practice for any employer [t]o discriminate against any person in compensation or in other terms or conditions of employment" because of, among other things, "sexual orientation." 

This language could impose new obligations on employers that offer health care coverage only to same-sex or opposite-sex domestic partners.  However, the new law does not appear to place additional oblications on employers who have chosen not to offer any domestic partner coverage, since the employer in this instance would not be discriminating against one class of persons.    If you would like additional guidance on this new law it is recommended that you contact your legal counsel.

A new wave of technological advances has brought fresh meaning to "chatting with your neighbors" about global issues. After a few clicks on your home computer, you can be connected to someone across the globe in seconds. Blogs about pretty much any topic can be found, and are used by an increasing number of people.

That's why Regence is also offering a venue to connect with members, providers and the general public about a variety of health topics, including the transformation of health care through a new Web site we have developed at www.ReinventHealthCare.com.

Premera has introduced its Out of Pocket Estimator tool that will enable hospitals (and later on, clinics) to provide an estimate to patients of their out of pocket costs for hospital services, based on their specific benefit package. 

Providence Everett Medical Center went live in early February providing its Premera patients with an estimate of his/her share of the cost for the hospital’s services.  Another four hospitals are expected to begin using the “Estimator” by mid-year.  Other hospitals and major clinics are being targeted for the Estimator by year end.  To read more about this tool click here. 

Disparities in hospital quality persist, as patients treated at top-quality hospitals are nearly one-third less likely to die than those admitted to all other hospitals, reports HealthGrades, a health care ratings company. Poor-quality care in a hospital deals a blow to employers through higher medical costs, longer leaves of absence and even the loss of employees.

Hospitals ranked in the top 5% nationally had on average a 28% lower mortality rate and a 5% lower complications rate, HealthGrades notes. These findings highlight “a troubling phenomenon: a preventable gap between high-quality hospitals and the rest of the field," the company states. “158,264 lives may have been saved and 12,410 major complications avoided” if the level of care at all hospitals had equaled that at the top performers during the three years studied.

To identify the hospitals in the top 5%, HealthGrades analyzed nearly 39 million hospitalizations in 2003, 2004 and 2005 at 4,971 non-federal, non-children’s, short-term acute care hospitals. To find out if your network hospitals are among HealthGrades’ “Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence,” check out the free listings at HealthGrades.com. The site also sells detailed quality reports on individual hospitals.

Washington State Hospital Association has unveiled a Web site that will give consumers and competitors information about cost of services and quality information. All 97 hospitals in Washington are members, and offer data by clicking the "Hospital Transparency" window icon at www.wsha.org.

"Reliable information allows patients and purchasers to make informed decisions about where they choose to seek care. It also helps policy makers and the public measure the cost and quality of hospital care," said Leo Greenawalt, president of the Washington State Hospital Association.

The site will offer: pricing information, including hospital-specific charges for more than 500 types of hospital treatments; quality data, including hospital-specific performance on quality indicators relating to treatment various ailments; and billing information, including common questions about hospital bills and information about the availability of charity care and financial assistance.

Recently, the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine announced new recommendations for the amount of physical activity most adults should be getting every day. Check out the official report.

Today's medicines are more complex and powerful than ever before. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) MedMaster™ database can help you find the important information you need to use medications safely and effectively.

SafeMedication.com features complete, easy-to-read information on more than 800 drugs. It is based on ASHP's premier, unbiased drug information resources, which are developed independently by pharmacists and other medication experts.

Taking care of your heart is more important than you might know. Too few people realize that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of American women — and of men. But the good news is that heart disease can largely be prevented. Go Red for Women empowers women with knowledge and tools so they can take positive action to reduce their risks of heart disease and stroke and protect their health.

February 2nd is Go Red for Women Day. Take a minute out of your busy day to check out the wonderful resources the American Heart Association provides. Learn how to love your heart (get physical and eat smart), Know your numbers (cholesterol, blood pressure and body mass index) as well as take the Go Red Heart Check-up to learn what shape your heart is in and what the risks are.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! Get started and Go Red! 
www.goredforwomen.org

Tired of trying to make sense of what you should eat and why? The American Heart Association offers easy-to-follow recommendations which will help you focus on making healthy choices without having to scrutinize every last bite. Your eating patterns are one of the best weapons you have to prevent heart disease.

This might not be the most comfortable topic to talk about, but it is a very important one. Human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection, is the most common cause of cervical cancer and therefore, the release of a vaccine to protect against it is important to announce. Learn more about the recent findings and who should get vaccinated.