Health Care Reform – Who’s Got Your (HRO) Back?

There are HRO service providers that can do a wonderful job in a stable environment, efficient and effective. But who can do the job in an uncertain financial and regulatory environment? Which vendor partner/s has your back in times of change?

Today I watched as President Obama signed the historic health care reform bill. If you’re an employer, are you prepared for what the recently changed regulations will do to your business and how they will impact your employees? Are you comfortable that all of your employee and delivery systems are ready for compliance – across internal and, potentially, multiple third-party vendor systems?

As recently as February, Mercer found that seventy-one percent of U.S. employers have done nothing to prepare in advance. This is reasonable since no one was assured what new regulations, if any, would be passed. But prepared or not, some elements will go into effect in 2010, and every impacted employer and their HRO partners are going to need to scramble. 

At the end of the day, compliance is an employer’s responsibility, and wholesale benefit policy and plan reviews require big “C” consulting. However, an experienced HRO vendor partner with top-notch subject matter expertise can advise on changes that are required to keep your information and systems in compliance. And a primary multi-process provider can help work across the often myriad of systems, programs and interfaces that will need to be updated.

 I just took a quick scan of some of the HRO service provider websites. As you would expect, major benefits administration vendors like Hewitt, Mercer and Towers Watson have been long active on the topic; research, web info, bulletins, podcasts and webcasts. And today, Hewitt is hosting one of its bi-weekly healthcare reform webcasts, and Mercer is hosting one on the recent changes to mental health parity and addiction equity regulations.

ACS, via its consulting arm Buck Consulting, has prominent health care reform information available. ADP also has an easy to find section with weekly updates, and is already listing when some health care reform regulations are going into effect over the next few years. And Aon has a website area with weekly briefings and access to health care reform information.

If you are a current HRO client of benefits health and welfare administration, payroll, employee self services, or recruiting – who has kept you informed along the way? Who has called you today?

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall

Explore posts in the same categories: health and welfare administration, hr outsourcing, hr outsourcing research, hro, HRO providers, hro research, nelsonhall, payroll outsourcing, recruitment process outsourcing, rpo

Tags: ACS, ADP, Aon, BucK Consulting, health and welfare outsourcing, health care reform, Hewitt, HR, hr outsourcing, hro, HRO providers, hro research, Mercer, nelsonhall, payroll outsourcing, rpo, Towers Watson

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.