12 Nov My Reading
Over the course of a given day, I read a fair number of articles on a variety of topics for small businesses, lawyers and general interest. I will begin sharing some of those articles here a couple of times per week.
Here is this week’s list:
For web designers, the greatest challenge, according to this article “3 Things Holding You Back From $3,000+ Website Projects” is not getting paid enough for the work being done.
My Takeaway for Clients: Spend a reasonable amount of time talking with potential clients about what they want and expect for the service before giving them a quote and be prepared to back that quote up.
Business Tip: Assiduously track all of your time on a project, even if you are charging a flat rate, then analyze those time entries to make sure you are quoting an accurate price.
The Affordable Care Act rollout has been problematic if we are being diplomatic, disastrous if we are being closer to accurate. While the employer mandate is still a year away, lawsuits are being filed left and right against insurance companies, as this post points out:
Several media outlets are reporting on lawsuits filed by insured against insurance companies seeking to enjoin the cancellation of their policies, charging fraud and misrepresentation. Others have been filed suggesting that insurance companies should be required to continue to offer their lower-cost non-compliant coverages. Whether or not these suits have any merit, I think they should serve as a strong warning to employers looking at their 2015 compliance plan. Football may be America’s pastime, but filing lawsuits is a close second.
The author of the post, Keith McMurdy makes a very, very good suggestion to employers who offer health care benefits:
Employers should spend the next 12 month working with their lawyers, accountants and befits professionals developing a fully compliant program. While challenges can always be brought, the objective would be to develop a compliance strategy that minimizes the risk of a successful claim. People will always be mad about something, but employers can at least prepare for the challenge by improving communication, updating their practices and making sure all of their ducks are in a row.
I can’t agree more.
My Takeaway for Clients: If you are going to be making changes to your health insurance offering to employees, you need to spend the next 14 months making sure your offering complies with all aspects of the ACA. If you don’t you might find yourself in court.
Business Tip: Call you lawyer, accountant, insurance broker and get going right now, on getting to a compliant program. It may seem expensive now, but it will be cheaper than waiting and getting sued later.
While we are on the subject of small businesses and health plans, the National Federation of Independent Business published this infographic.
Then Shanw Hessinger discussed the result of the NFIB study at this post on SmallBizTrends.com
My Takeaway for Clients: Premiums for health insurance are going to increase for the same coverage you have now, it is almost impossible to avoid.
Business Tip: Talk to your employees, your insurance broker, HR professionals and even medical professionals to find a way to minimize increases. It may be impossible to absorb the increase in insurance premiums yourself, so your best plan is to inform your employees now and consider if there are other benefits that you can add to offset the loss to their paychecks they will take on insurance premiums.
Finally, a little fun. As a huge soccer fan, I love to see great goals scored. Each year, FIFA, the world governing body of soccer awards the Puskas Award to the best goal of the year. Here is the announcement of the nominees, which included a goal scored by Lisa DeVana, who plays for SkyBlue FC in the NWSL, the women’s professional league in the U.S. Here are the video links of the nominees. My favorite to win is this one, by Swedish International Zlatan Ibrahimovic against England:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDsxKXa0PbA&w=560&h=315]
My Takeaway for Clients: I have none, but I admire athletic achievement and these are some brilliant goals.