Five Important Health Plan Trends for 2018: More In Common with Retirement Plans Than You Would Think!

Every now and then its a little fun to go off the beaten path of 401(k) plan topics and explore something related, but different.  In the past, we have done that with international retirement benefits, the importance of company culture and on this episode we delve into health benefits programs.  For this episode, our last full episode of 2017, my guest Ed Fensholt, an ERISA Attorney and Senior Vice President and Director of Compliance Services with Lockton Benefits Group keeps things interesting and entertaining as we explore his list of the five important heath plan trends for 2018.  What really jumped out to me was that so much of what we talked about had direct parallels or overlapped many of the retirement plan topics we have explored on the podcast.  I'm not going to steal any of Ed's thunder and give away his list, but what I will tell you is don't miss the last point.  Guest Bio Ed Fensholt is a Senior Vice President and Director of the Compliance Services national practice at Lockon. Our team of attorneys supplies our clients and the Lockton associates who serve them with a broad range of compliance-related support for employee benefits issues arising under ERISA, HIPAA, COBRA, the Internal Revenue Code and other select federal and state statutes and regulations, including the Affordable Care Act. Employers face significant challenges under the health reform legislation and its regulatory coattails. Our practice helps clients understand the impact to their benefits programs and get ahead of significant changes and requirements. Our work in this regard includes detailed analysis, alerts, blog postings, webcasts, seminars and a wide variety of ACA-related tools, checklists, grids, etc. Ed is a frequent lecturer inside and outside the organization and a published author on employee benefits matters. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your workplace retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over ninety prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!