Chris Vogel, CEBS, Author at Word on Benefits

Seven Tips for Adding Prescription Drug Coverage Limits

Chris Vogel, CEBS

04 Jan 2017

You know the expression “Strike while the iron is hot”? For plan sponsors that have contemplated imposing limits on prescription drug coverage but have worried about upsetting plan participants, the timing just may be right. Participants almost couldn’t miss recent news of […]

Employee Benefits Wellness

Wake Up! Sleep Habits Matter at Work

Chris Vogel, CEBS

04 Nov 2016

Fretting over a work project. Binge-watching TV. Cramming for a test. Celebrating with friends. Reading just one more chapter of a great book. Plenty of things can keep us awake into the early morning hours. The results? We go to work with […]

Human Resources (HR) Paid Time Off (PTO)

Time Off for Voting—Yea or Nay?

Chris Vogel, CEBS

18 Oct 201609 Aug 2018

Does everyone in your workforce have enough time to vote—enough non-work hours while the polls are open—on November 8? If you’re in doubt, you may want to check what your state laws say, if anything, about time off for voting. The federal […]

CEBS (Certified Employee Benefit Specialist) Education Employee Benefits

In Search of Benefits Wisdom, Colleagues and Crab Cakes

Chris Vogel, CEBS

03 Aug 2016

When I attended my first Employee Benefits Symposium in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2010—a reward for completing my Certified Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) designation a few weeks earlier, my only duties were to attend the CEBS conferment ceremony and soak up education […]

Employee Benefits Health Care Opioid Abuse Prescription Drugs

Opioid Epidemic: 8 Ways Plan Sponsors Can Fight It

Chris Vogel, CEBS

19 Jul 201622 Sep 2020

In 2015, 38,300 people were killed on U.S. roads, up 8% from 2014, according to the National Safety Council. In 2014—the latest year for which statistics are available–47,055 Americans died of a drug overdose, including 18,893 deaths from prescription opioid painkillers and […]

Communication Employee Benefits Health Care

Four Ways to Make Sure EOBs Do Explain

Chris Vogel, CEBS

22 Jun 2016

Have you ever tried to make sense of health care bills after a serious illness? Did you fantasize about marching into your insurance company president’s office, handing him or her a box full of EOBs and demanding a real explanation of your […]

Employee Benefits

How to Be a Benefits Terms Trivia Champ

Chris Vogel, CEBS

14 Jun 201614 Jun 2016

Ah, the good old days. The International Foundation first published the Glossary of Employee Benefit Plan and Investment Terminology in 1973. That slimmer, trimmer first Glossary weighed in at 8.4 ounces and defined almost 600 benefit terms in 54 pages. It also […]

Employee Benefits Health Care Insurance

Time for a Spousal Spending Checkup?

Chris Vogel, CEBS

24 May 201624 May 2016

It’d be nice to write that health care doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. In this case, that cliché likely is both inappropriate and overly optimistic. But two experienced health plan administrators suggest in the May Benefits Magazine that […]

Communication Defined Contribution (DC) Plans Employee Benefits Retirement

Communications Key in Unique 457 Plan Reenrollment Program

Chris Vogel, CEBS

27 Jan 2016

Concerned about how aggressively many Illinois state employees had invested 457 plan assets, plan trustees decided in late 2014 on a bold move: Investments of all 53,000 participants would be moved into a lifecycle fund unless a participant opted out of reenrollment. […]

Compliance Health Care HIPAA Regulatory

True Tales of HIPAA

Chris Vogel, CEBS

10 Nov 201510 Nov 2015

Unless a person’s job depends on knowing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) privacy and security rules, the topic is what my family calls a MEGO (“my eyes glaze over”). So I was surprised when I attended “HIPAA Tune-Up for Your Health Plans,” […]