2006 Best of the Web: Benefits
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Benefit managers see Web as key information source
Online tools crucial for everyday tasks
by JOANNE WOJCIK
Surfing the Internet is part of benefit managers' daily routine these days as the breadth of information available on health and retirement plans continues to grow.
Based on an informal survey of a handful of benefit managers, the most popular sites are: the Society for Human Resource Management, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Employee Benefits Research Institute, as well as Web sites created by the major benefit consultants.
These benefit managers also typically spend about an hour every day reading and responding to e-mails or doing online research.
"It's replacing direct phone calls," said Barb Zavodny, senior manager-corporate benefits strategy at McCormick & Co. Inc. in Sparks, Md.
"It's where I get most of my information," said Ray Brusca, vp of benefits at Black & Decker Corp. in Towson, Md. "I'm totally electronic."
"The Web gives us the ability to obtain background on macro trends, but we can also use it to find out more about what's happening locally and at the state level," said Paul Hackleman, benefits director for San Mateo County, Calif. "I'm always using Web sites."
Jim Crockett, manager of risk and benefits at Denver Water, said he often visits the SHRM Web site when doing research.
"They also have survey data, (legal) opinions and provide access to additional links" where more information may be available, he said.
"SHRM is good for the broader HR context," agreed Linda Levesque, vp of benefits at UnumProvident Corp. in Portland, Maine.
But the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans site has a broader array of information specifically on benefit programs, she said.
On www.ifebp.org, "I can literally do mini-surveys about what other companies are doing," she said.
The Kaiser Family Foundation Web site is also a valuable tool for obtaining contemporary information on employee benefit trends, most of the benefit managers agreed.
Nearly all of the benefit managers surveyed regularly visit the Web sites of the major benefit consultants--regardless of whether they are clients.
"Aon, Segal, Wyatt, Towers are all good for doing benchmarking," said Ms. Zavodny.
Mr. Brusca said he often reads daily releases from Mercer Human Resource Consulting's Web site "because they have a huge Washington resource group."
"The Web sites I use most are those that provide me with information on legislation affecting benefits," said Mike Pikelny, corporate actuary and employee benefit consultant at Hartmarx Corp. in Chicago. His primary resource is a paid subscriber-only site from Commerce Clearing House.
Mr. Brusca said he uses the American Benefits Council's Web site to "keep track of the changing landscape in employee benefits in Washington because it provides side-by-side comparisons of bills."
For information on health and medical trends, benefit managers often use WebMD--the site many of their corporate intranets offer to employees.
"It's an excellent, excellent source of health information," said Ms. Levesque, who also uses www.mayoclinic.com and the National Wellness Foundation's site, which focuses on health promotion and disease management.
Chris McSwain, director of compensation and benefits at SCANA Corp. in Columbia, S.C., said that he often uses the Wellness Councils of America and Integrated Benefits Institute's Web sites for wellness and other productivity-related issues.
Bonnie Blackley, benefits director at Blue Ridge Paper Products in Canton, N.C., said she frequents www.kff.org, www.employeebenefits-advisor.com and www.healthleaders-interstudy.com.
Ms. Zavodny has been using www.diabetesatwork.org to learn more about managing diabetes on behalf of McCormick's employees, while Mr. Hackleman said he often goes to the National Committee on Quality Assurance's Web site, which offers "chart packs" and other details on medical care. Also, diseasebenchmarks.com comes in handy when researching the cost of certain treatment episodes, he added.
When doing retirement research, Ms. Levesque said she uses the Boston College Retirement Research Center Web site.
"It's a great source for what other companies are doing, to educate employees about risk and how much they need to retire and to pay for health care," she said.
Mr. Crockett said he frequently turns to the Chicago Consulting Actuaries' national Web-based newsletter called "Insight" for retirement-related issues relative to the public sector.
"A lot of times they'll do detailed analyses of GASB," he said, referring to the Government Accounting Standards Board, which recently promulgated new rules for how retiree health benefits are accounted.
Best of the Web 2006: Benefits
American Assn. of Occupational Health Nurses Inc.
The Web site for the American Assn. of Occupational Health Nurses provides information to help businesses improve employee health and promote a safe workplace. Employers can locate information on how poor employee health can impact on-the-job-injuries, disability claims and getting injured workers back to work. The information, available in a section called For Your Business, is available for free.
The site also provides success stories that explain how some major corporations use occupational nurses to address cost drivers such as workers compensation and disability claims. --By Roberto Ceniceros
BenefitsLink.com Inc.
Though weak visually, www.benefitslink.com is chock-full of helpful benefit plan information and services for employers of all sizes, private or government sponsored. Employee benefit managers can do everything from sign up for free e-mail newsletters and peruse benefit technology vendors and consultants in the site's "Benefitslink Yellow Pages" section, to search through regularly-updated employee benefit job listings and participate in discussions about on the highly active message boards. --Rupal Parekh
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site contains more than just information on employment, inflation, productivity and wages.
Under the site's safety & health section, employers can look up a broad array of statistics on employee injuries and which employees are most likely to be injured. The data includes information such as employee injury and illness rates by industry and the nationwide total of non-fatal occupational injuries involving days away from work.
The site also contains an incidence rate calculator and comparison tool that employers can use to compute their incidence rate and compare it with the experience of other companies of similar size or those that are involved in the same type of work. --By Roberto Ceniceros
U.S. National Health Information Center
Name any disease, drug or remedy, and you'll be certain to find out more information about it on this government-run Web site. In addition to a medical dictionary, it also offers a drug database; information about support groups, community organizations and federal agencies; and a guide to basic first aid--in both English and Spanish. The site also has consumer guides for selecting doctors, dentists, hospitals, hospices--even nursing homes. It also has a link to a colorful child-friendly site that contains educational games, contests and tips on safe Web surfing for kids. All benefits portals should link to this site. --By Joanne Wojcik
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
The Web site of the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is a good source of information for benefit managers, as the organization is well-known for conducting detailed surveys on timely issues such as the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit and trends in prescription drug costs. A new tutorial discusses the key elements of consumer-driven health plans, which are gaining in popularity in the employer community.
A link on the site takes users to Kaisernetwork.org, which is a valuable tool for researchers looking for national survey information on health-related issues, published articles in nearly every health- and benefits-related publication there is and state-by-state health information, among other things. Users can sign up for up for e-mail alerts--daily online summaries of news stories--with links to the original articles and other pertinent Kaiser Family Foundation Web sites.
--By Gloria Gonzalez and Joanne Wojcik
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The Web site is a clearinghouse of valuable information for anyone responsible for developing a pandemic response plan for an organization, offering a comprehensive checklist of tasks that organizations should perform to prepare for the potential impact of a pandemic outbreak and a simple method to monitor progress in completing each task. The Web site features the most up-to-date information from a number of government sources on the latest pandemic alert level, links to the pandemic plans of numerous states and municipalities, and a chart showing the individual state allocations of anti-viral drugs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stockpile. --By Gloria Gonzalez
Asset International Inc.
When you sign up for the daily "NewsDash" from Asset International's Plansponsor.com, don't be surprised if it has trouble getting past your company's spam blocker. While the headlines may seem like they're from the National Enquirer, they're about serious issues involving human resources, health and pension benefits. Take one recent headline as an example: "TEXT VEXXED - Pink Slip Text-Messaged to UK Worker." Who wouldn't want to read further? Plansponsor.com knows how to spice up benefits information and sometimes even make it downright exciting. --By Joanne Wojcik
Blue Care Network of Michigan
Employers looking to encourage their employees to use generic prescription drugs would be wise to direct them to this Web site, developed by Blue Care Network of Michigan, the health maintenance organization subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The site was designed for Michigan residents, but is accessible and useful to anyone looking to curtail their prescription drug costs. The key feature is its generic drug value calculator, in which a member can choose from a list of 100 drugs, enter the number of pills they take per day and estimate the potential monthly savings they could achieve by switching to the generic version of the drug. --By Gloria Gonzalez
WebMD
Although www.webmd.com may not be a traditional site devoted to employee benefit news and information, its wealth of health-related information would prove useful for any benefit manager wanting to make such information easily accessible to employees via a corporate intranet link. The site not only offers information on any conceivable health condition and prescription drug, but also includes an interactive "symptom checker," a body mass index calculator, heart healthy living guides and tips on first aid and emergencies. Employees also can watch a video on the need for kids' booster shots, learn about what foods provide the most energy and receive hygiene tips on how to banish bad breath. --By Sally Roberts
Workers Compensation Research Institute
The Web site offers a variety of information on benefit costs and how they vary from state to state. The site also contains useful graphics, known as WCRI Benchmarks, that help explain how state workers compensation systems vary in their efficiency.
For example, a bar chart compares 13 states' average benefit payment per claim with more than seven days of lost time. Other chart comparisons include paid benefit delivery expenses, medical-legal expenses and time from injury to first payment.
While WCRI membership is required to access the organization's full reports and slide presentations, the general public can access the reports' abstracts that contain useful information. Further reports can be ordered online. --By Roberto Ceniceros
