Tuesday’s Tidbits

The Affordable Care Act requires employers, including the U.S. Government, to report the cost of employee health insurance on the annual W-2 form as a way to make that cost more visible to employees. The Internal Revenue Service released a draft 2011 W-2 form today — the form that will be used in January 2012 — and announced that the IRS will not enforce this requirement until the 2012 reporting year — the W-2 that will be distributed in January 2013.

The Labor Department issued two more FAQs on Affordable Care Act implementation, neither of which applies to the FEHBP.

AHIP has launched a Spotlight on Community Leadership, an online showcase of the innovative efforts of AHIP Member Organizations to improve the health and well-being of those in their communities through special outreach and service programs.

The Wall Street Journal reports that an increasing number of people are declining to pick up or purchase their filled prescription at the pharmacy. The Journal compared records from the second quarter of this year to records from 2006 before the Great Recession. However, the FEHBlog has noticed that its pharmacy has begun to refill prescriptions without being asked. That’s another change from 2006. So is it possible that the customer does not know that the prescription needs to be picked up. The Journal also reported on a new program by prescription benefit manager Express Scripts “that aims to contact people who fail to take their prescription drugs—before they actually stop.”