AllWays Insider

With today’s low unemployment rate and the resulting competition for talent, many employers are looking to their health benefits to retain employees and grow their teams. While 20% of employers increased their health care benefits from 2018 to 2019,  there's a less costly way to maximize this benefit: by taking full advantage of the resources your health plan already offers. Here are 5 tips to help employers and their employees make full use of their current health plan.

This week's Insider News includes insights into wellness programs and what make them successful, the use of fitness trackers in predicting disease outbreaks, a study on low-income adults' struggle with medical bills, and a unique hospital-college collaboration that might be the future of student health care.

With the devastating effects of opioid use in daily headlines, you don’t have to look too far to see that the opioid crisis is a serious and troubling problem here in the United States. It’s clear that no family or community is immune, and that includes employers and their workplaces. But, by understanding the problem and working with the health plans they offer, employers can help employees prevent, manage, and recover from opioid addiction.

For the first time in U.S. history, advances in medical science combined with a larger generation of older Americans will lead to a greater population of seniors than children. We're discussing the impact of that population shift, along with a study on healthy habits in middle age and a survey on the benefits of house calls, in this week's Insider News.

While there is the occasional exception (like Boston’s recent record-breaking 74-degree day), the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere are typically full of cold weather, short days, and little sunlight. These three factors can contribute to sadness, decreased energy, and stress, and even lead to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).