Consumer Driven Health Care

As the year winds down, consumers with health care flexible spending accounts (FSAs) should check their account balances and make plans to spend any remaining funds by the end of the year so that those funds are not forfeited.

Employers are discovering how a wellness initiative is launched and supported over time is equally important as the available programs.

In the Engaging Employees in Their Health survey, respondents were asked open-ended questions regarding wellness programs. Among the findings, it was determined that reducing health care costs was the main reason for offering wellness programs.

The Department of Health and Human Services is offering grants to ambitious states that can be the first to produce consumer-friendly technology for health care exchanges.

However, as I look at my flex plan enrollment form, I can't help but feel like health reform pulled a fast one on us. And it was sneaky.

In the second quarter of 2010, individual and family health savings account programs grew by a larger number than in the first quarter of 2010, finds the the Consumer Driven Healthcare Institute.