Gluten-free Diets

Recently, the United States has witnessed a new trend in its stores and restaurants: Gluten-free foods.

If you paid enough attention while walking down the streets, you will be overwhelmed with the big amount of the gluten-free fast food, cookies, drinks, and recipes getting rubbed on your face.

Gluten-free foods are the meals that don’t contain a specific protein that can be found in wheat, barley, and rye. It is very beneficial for people who suffer from celiac disease or have any sensitivity to wheat protein. Other than that, gluten-free diets can be very harmful.

Cutting foods out of your diet without consulting your nutritionist is very unhealthy. Plus, just because something is on the trends list doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a good choice.

The Affordable Care Act Remains

The Affordable Care Act Remains

After much debate in Washington D.C. last year, the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land though there was one important change you should understand. In the federal tax bill that was passed by Congress in late 2017, the penalty requiring individuals to have a Qualified Health Plan or pay a penalty was repealed, starting in 2019. This is the only part of the law that was repealed and for 2018, the tax penalty for not having health insurance remains the law. The rest of the law, including financial assistance in the form of tax credits, remains in place.

Health Insurance Costs Definitions

Health Insurance Costs

For many of us, the words describing the costs of healthcare coverage are new and sometimes confusing. But understanding them is important in making decisions and controlling your cost. Here are a few you want to understand: Premium — Think of this as your monthly bill – the amount you must pay the health insurance company, on-time each month, or you may lose coverage. You pay this even if you don’t use healthcare services that month. Deductible — Generally, the amount you spend on covered healthcare services and prescriptions out of pocket before your health insurance company starts to pay a percentage of your bills. Health plans vary on what they count towards the deductible. Plans with lower premiums tend to have higher deductibles. Copay (or copayments) — A fixed amount ($10, for example) you owe for a prescription or medical visit that is covered under your health plan, usually paid when you receive the service. For most plans, the copay phase of cost-sharing starts right away; the exception is Health Savings Account (HSA) plans for which you have to meet the deductible first. Coinsurance — A percentage of costs for a covered healthcare service or medication you pay (30%, for example) AFTER you’ve met your deductible. Let’s say you’ve met your deductible: You pay 30% of a $100 service which is $30. The insurance company pays the rest (70%). The percentage amount varies depending on the level of plan. Out-of-Pocket Maximum —The most you’d ever have to pay for covered services and prescriptions in a plan year. After you spend this amount on deductibles, copays and coinsurance, your health insurance company pays 100% of the costs of covered benefits. Your monthly premium or anything you spend for services your plan doesn’t cover (out-of-network) do not count toward this limit. For more information, review your Summary of Benefit Coverage. This can be found by going to your on-line account, then Plan Documents and then Summary of Benefits.

Medicare Doughnut Hole Will Close in 2019

Medicare Part D beneficiaries who have high prescription drug expenses currently have to pay more once the total cost of their medicines reaches a certain threshold.

Medicare beneficiaries with high annual prescription drug costs will get some relief a year earlier than expected as a result of the budget deal President Trump signed early Friday.

Part D beneficiaries who have high prescription drug expenses currently have to pay more once the total cost of their medicines reaches a certain threshold. That’s due to a quirky aspect of Part D called the coverage gap, also known as the "doughnut hole."

The doughnut hole has been narrowing each year since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010. The gap was scheduled to close in 2020, when beneficiaries would be expected to pay 25 percent of the cost of all their prescriptions while they were in the gap.

Under Friday’s budget deal, the doughnut hole will now close next year. Beginning in 2019, Part D enrollees will pay 25 percent of the cost of all their prescription drugs from the time they enter the gap until they reach catastrophic coverage. 

For 2018, the threshold for entering the doughnut hole remains at $3,750 worth of drug costs. Once a Medicare enrollee passes that limit, he or she is in the coverage gap and will have to pay 35 percent of the cost of brand-name drugs and 44 percent of generics. They will continue to pay those costs until their out-of-pocket spending reaches $5,000. Once they hit that limit, they’ll no longer be in the doughnut hole and will pay no more than 5 percent of their drug costs for the rest of the year.

Congress made the early close of the doughnut hole possible by requiring certain pharmaceutical manufacturers to pay more of the costs for enrollees who are in the coverage gap. Currently, brand-name drugmakers pay 50 percent of enrollees’ brand name drug costs while they are in the coverage gap. Under Friday’s budget law, they will now pay 70 percent.

By Dena Bunis

Do Not Touch these 8 Things at the Restaurant

More than 60% of people eat out at least once a week in the US! Of course, we all love eating out every now and then, but many of us fail to see the very nasty dark side of restaurants.

In fact, a large number of restaurants are far from being the cleanest places you can eat at. In other words, you can easily end up sick because of a nice dinner out.

Although not life-threatening, a restaurant can get you infected with awful germs through many different ways.

How Customers receive Form 1095-A

How Customers receive Form 1095-A

Connect for Health Colorado is mailing 1095-A forms to customers now, so they should receive the form by the first week in February. The forms will also be available in the customer’s MyDocuments tab.

Your customer received Form 1095-A: What is next?

If the customer receives a Form 1095-A from Connect for Health Colorado, and the information appears to be correct, they can proceed to use it to complete their tax return. Customersfill out Form 8962 if the customer received advance premium tax credits or wants to claim premium tax credits.

If the customer believes the information in their Form 1095-A is wrong, direct them to call the Service Center at 1-855-PLANS-4-YOU (855-752-6749) right away. The 2017 tax filing deadline is April 17, 2018, and a correction could take up to 8 weeks. The customer should be prepared to provide the Service Center rep with whatever the customer believes are thecorrect values for each month of 2017; the customer will be asked to provide supporting documents within 30 days.

The supporting document(s) needed will depend upon the correction(s) being requested, such as credit card or bank statements proving premium payments, a utility bill supporting an address change, or a government-issued ID or document supporting a correction in date of birth; the Service Center will help identify types of supporting documents needed for the correction.

The Service Center will initiate the correction process once the customer provides the supporting document(s); if the supporting document(s) are not provided within 30 days, the member will be at risk for not receiving the corrected 1095-A and the ticket may be closed. If the customer needs more than 30 days to provide the supporting documents, the customer should call the Service Center to request more time. If the ticket is closed, the customer can call to start the process again. This includes those customers whose 1095-A forms show an error such as:

• Months of coverage are incorrect for one or more household members
• Incorrectly showing zero advance premium tax credit for one or more months in 2017
• Not reflecting an applicable married, filing jointly status for 2017

·       A qualified life change event (QLCE) for 2017

• If the client updated their determination for 2017 and Form 1095-A shows the advance premium tax credit was cancelled for the entire year.

FTC Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), “tax identity theft happens when someone uses your Social Security number to get a tax refund or a job.”

Both consumers and small businesses can increase their education and awareness by participating in this year’sFTC Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week (please see here https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/feature-0029-tax-identity-theft-awareness-week) where consumers will learn about tax-related identity theft, IRS imposter scams, how to protect yourself, and how to recover if you become a victim.

Small businesses will learn about protecting sensitive business and customer data including practical identity safety practices for your business. Small business will also learn about tax-related identity theft, imposter scams that target businesses, practical cybersecurity practices for small business, and data breach response.

In addition to, and separate from, the FTC Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, consumers need to be concerned with the Equifax data breach event and fraudulent income tax returns.

As most consumers know, Equifax announced last September their data breach event affecting 143 million U.S. consumers where information breached included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver's license numbers – all the personally identifiable information (PII) that ID theft criminals need to file fraudulent tax returns.FTC Tx Identty Thef Awarenees Wee