What could a wellness program mean to your company?

By Terri Mullett

The first step in implementing a wellness program at your workplace is to assemble an internal team to do it. Choose wisely – the two factors will make or break your committee’s success are your team members’ enthusiasm and senior-level support/participation. Since this is the team tasked with engaging employees and spreading wellness attitudes throughout the organization, it’s important to have a strong group leading the effort.

Once assembled, your team should develop a mission statement. Team members can then use the mission statement to brainstorm wellness-promoting ideas. From there they can explore health-promoting activities, talk about how to distribute information, and make action plans for their ideas.

When planning out the year’s programs, keep in mind these tips:

• Wellness activities should be open to all employees; not just those covered by the group health plan.
• Activities should touch not only on the obvious topics like exercise and nutrition, but include campaigns for mental wellness and financial wellness.
• Incentivize. Offering rewards significantly increases participation rates.
• Remember to get feedback. Surveying employees helps you track the interest in your programs and helps you gather new ideas for future campaigns.

Over the years, OneGroup has helped companies implement a variety of successful wellness challenges and informational campaigns. Many of these are repeated each year due to employee enthusiasm. Healthy eating programs and weight loss challenges are some of the most popular. Walking contests, regional races, exercise videos and dancing challenges have also been a big hit with employee populations. Financial wellness one-on-one sessions are offered and well attended, and campaigns about employee assistance program resources and stress management are also popular options.

Terri Mullett is a senior employee benefits consultant at OneGroup. She can be reached at 315-418-4964 or TMullett@OneGroup.com.

This content is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing professional, financial, medical or legal advice. You should contact your licensed professional to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Please refer to your policy contract for any specific information or questions on applicability of coverage.

Please note coverage can not be bound or a claim reported without written acknowledgment from a OneGroup Representative.

For Immediate assistance call 1-800-268-1830

Medical providers may soon see an increase in reimbursement. Here’s what that means for you.

By Matt Banks

April 2019 Update: The NYS Workers’ Compensation Board recently released an update to its Medical Fee Schedule. The update increases reimbursement to providers treating WC patients.

The rates for reimbursement have essentially remained unchanged since 1996, with rates remaining well below the rate of inflation. The new methodology for calculating these fees remains unchanged and fee schedules are both region and activity-specific. The revised fee schedule includes an overall 5% increase for all provider types and additional increases for certain specialty groups to raise the number of authorized providers for injured workers. The proposed fee schedule affects medical, podiatry, psychological and chiropractic treatment.

While this may increase the medical costs of WC claims, the increased rates would incentivize medical professionals to provide care for work-related injuries. The main goal of the rate increase is to ensure NY providers receive fair and reasonable reimbursement for prompt, quality treatment to our injured workers. Regions with shortages of medical providers authorized to treat injured workers may see further increases to raise accessibility.

The changes were implemented on April 1, 2019.

Matt Banks is a Senior Risk Management Claim Representative at OneGroup. He can be reached at 315-558-6790 or MBanks@OneGroup.com.

This content is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing professional, financial, medical or legal advice. You should contact your licensed professional to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Please refer to your policy contract for any specific information or questions on applicability of coverage.

Please note coverage can not be bound or a claim reported without written acknowledgment from a OneGroup Representative.

For Immediate assistance call 1-800-268-1830

Hiring a payroll provider? Here’s what you need to know.

By Rina Corigliano-Hart

Are you considering moving to a new payroll provider? Hiring your first employee(s) and need a payroll solution? Choosing the right payroll provider can reduce errors and save you valuable time and energy.

If you can, start with a referral from someone you trust. OneGroup has worked with many payroll providers in the past and is more than equipped to help you find one that fits your needs. Check with similar businesses in your area, too. Payroll providers working with businesses like yours will speak your language and understand your unique situations.

Once you narrow the field it’s time to take a closer look at what each provider can do for you. Your payroll company should do three things: pay your employees on time, pay your payroll taxes on time, and file your payroll tax forms on time. Any additional features should be what you specifically need.

After all, there is such a thing as too much service. Consider how much you plan on growing your business, and how many full-time, part-time and contract employees you will have on your payroll. Do you need a provider that can handle different state and federal taxes? Do you need human resources services in addition to payroll? ACA tracking and reporting capabilities? Will you be offering employees benefits that necessitate deductions? All of these features and services can add up. Make sure the payroll package offered meets your requirements, but don’t be fooled into buying more than you need.

If you are transitioning to a new provider because your current one is not meeting your expectations, remember that the best time to switch is the beginning of the year. That’s when your pay cycle starts with a clean slate. Alternatively, you could aim for the end of a quarter when your quarterly reports are readily available.

OneGroup has helped many companies find the right payroll providers for their unique situations. If you’d like the advice of any of our experts or specialists, just reach out.

Rina Corigliano-Hart is a OneSelect Business Account Executive at OneGroup. She can be reached at 315-413-4492 or RHart@OneGroup.com.

This content is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing professional, financial, medical or legal advice. You should contact your licensed professional to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Please refer to your policy contract for any specific information or questions on applicability of coverage.

Please note coverage can not be bound or a claim reported without written acknowledgment from a OneGroup Representative.

For Immediate assistance call 1-800-268-1830

What a recall might look like for your business and how you can prevent it

By Abraham Danaher

Dear business owners: If you found out today that the plastic your company uses to manufacture all of its products was contaminated, what would you do?

Product recalls can be devastating.

On November 18, 2014, the National Highway & Traffic Safety Administration called for a nation-wide recall of all Takata airbags after dangerous defects in the product were discovered.

The recall ended up affecting 19 automakers, 42 million vehicles and 65 million airbags.

The scope of this recall was massive, and so was its effect on Takata. In lieu of the recall and the $10 billion in liability that the company owed, Takata was forced to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

While the Takata recall is an extreme example, remember that not all recalls involve international companies and billion dollar liabilities. Any company can be devastated by product recalls.

In 2017, Quality Foam, a company based in Brooklyn, NY, recalled over 12,000 mattresses. The products posed a fire hazard to customers and failed to meet the required flammability standards for mattresses. No one was hurt by the product and Quality Foam did not go bankrupt, but the company needed to provide all customers of the recalled mattress a free mattress cover to bring the product into compliance. It was costly fix – both in the monetary sense and to the company’s reputation.

There are two ways you can protect your business:

Product Liability Coverage: This insurance covers a product that fails and causes direct bodily injury or property damage to the customer or any other party.

Product Recall Insurance: This covers expenses a company would incur if they were forced to pull a product off the shelves. This includes transporting faulty products to another store, editing or disposing of them, hiring additional staff to help manage the situation, repairing and replacing the product, and the costs associated with public relations and media controlling. Most policies also include coverage for legal defense and disbursements, forensic inspections or internal investigations.

Abraham Danaher worked as an intern at OneGroup in 2018.

This content is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing professional, financial, medical or legal advice. You should contact your licensed professional to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Please refer to your policy contract for any specific information or questions on applicability of coverage.

Please note coverage can not be bound or a claim reported without written acknowledgment from a OneGroup Representative.

For Immediate assistance call 1-800-268-1830

How technology helps schools and school districts with safety plans and safety training.

By Douglas Cook, CIC, CPA

One of the greatest benefits of having technology always at our fingertips is our ability to learn new things so quickly. And no one appreciates learning as much as our teachers and the highly-skilled administration teams they work with every day.

These professionals studied for many years to master subjects like math, science, English, history, and music, so they could help us (and our children) learn new things. Nowadays, they must take on a new subject: safety. Maintaining a safe school seems to get harder and harder every day, and our schools’ teachers play a key role in maintaining safety for themselves and our children.

Every year, teachers take specific courses to learn what to do if they see aggressive behavior in a student, notice a child is missing, or are alerted to an emergency. They are taught what to do if they see a stranger in school, notice a slippery floor, see water leaking and so on.

Safety requires coordinated action by teachers and staff in every school. This coordination is often the result of training done by the school districts – oftentimes a huge project for the organizers.

Since technology can be so useful for learning, safety training found on OneGroup.com in our OneGroup Risk Management Center allows our clients to organize a training schedule for each employee, track who has completed which trainings and more.

These trainings are also archived in the platform. That way, when the unexpected happens, teachers and administrators can look up exactly what to do. Knowledge truly is power.

Douglas Cook is a Business Risk Specialist at OneGroup. He can be reached at 610-867-4169 or DCook@OneGroup.com.

This content is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing professional, financial, medical or legal advice. You should contact your licensed professional to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Please refer to your policy contract for any specific information or questions on applicability of coverage.

Please note coverage can not be bound or a claim reported without written acknowledgment from a OneGroup Representative.

For Immediate assistance call 1-800-268-1830