On May 8, 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (www.cms.gov) published the prices charged by over 3,000 hospitals for the 100 most common procedures.  The data provided include charges of specific hospitals that receive Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) payments paid under Medicare. Hospitals determine what they will charge for items and services provided to patients and these charges are the amount the hospital bills for an item or service.

This article on Emergency Response planning will wrap up our series of three articles on that subject. First, we reviewed the OSHA requirements for employers with over ten employees. Then we reviewed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Management Guide for Business and Industry, which presented step-by-step instructions on developing a company plan to respond to the kinds of catastrophic emergencies an organization can face. But keep in mind that Emergency and Disaster Planning is a big subject, bigger than any three short articles. Planners must do their homework to develop he right comprehensive plan for their organization.

NLRB nominees facing mixed reception in Senate: The fate of the nominees—three Democrats and two Republicans—is tied in part to a January decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled in Noel Canning v. NLRB that the recess appointments of two board members were unconstitutional. That decision is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If it is upheld, it is likely that all board decisions since the appointments were made (in January 2012) would be vacated for lack of a quorum. Also on May 16, 2013, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit fell in line with the D.C. Circuit, ruling that an NLRB recess appointment was invalid because it was made when the Senate was not in recess. The committee will vote on the nominees on May 29^th.  Source: Law.com 5/20/13

Where should Michigan employers go on domestic partner benefits?

If the latest statewide poll results are an indicator of where Michiganders stand on the question of same-sex marriage, many Michigan private-sector employers will feel the need to take a fresh, hard look at whether or not they should be offering domestic partner benefits to their unmarried employees.

He will . . . he won’t . . . now he will—employee must reimburse employer after winning a judgment in car accident: US Airways paid $66,866 in medical expenses for injuries suffered by plan participant McCutchen, who was involved in a car accident caused by a third party. US Airways’ plan entitled the company to reimbursement if the employee recovered money from a third party.

Last week several Detroit-area fast food restaurants were hit by a rolling demonstration by non-union fast food employees seeking higher wages. Certain McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Popeyes, Subway and Burger King retail stores reported employees calling in to take the day off and participate in demonstrations for an increase in fast food worker wages. By Saturday, an estimated 400 metro-Detroit workers participated in the walkout, part of the largest national demonstration by fast food workers in the U.S. to date.

One of the most stressful aspects of HR and any other management discipline is terminating an employee. No normal human being wants to play the bad guy or be part of taking away someone’s ability to earn a living and/or support a family.

At ASE we have several barometers that give us a sense of the “weather” out there, i.e., the issues employers are facing at any given point in time. Two of the barometers are the research calls we take and the training classes our members attend.  As of late, we have taken a number of calls for classes on how to deal with difficult employees.

On May 8, the Department of Labor released a temporary “Model Notice to Employees of Coverage Options” about the soon-to-launch Healthcare Exchanges, as required under Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Section 18B. It also released new guidance on COBRA elections under Obamacare. The Coverage Options Notice was originally targeted to be finalized and available for all employers by March 1, 2013, but for a variety of reasons was not.  The new target date is October 1, 2013.

After a long night in front of the TV doing my part to make sure the Red Wings advanced to the conference semi-finals, and on top of sneezing fits due to allergies, I confess that calling in sick seemed a rather tempting option for me yesterday morning.  However, with the 2013 Compensation & Benefits Conference a little over a week away (you should go!) and prep work on that event still to be done, and not wanting to neglect you, the reader, there I was yesterday, as assigned, writing this article.