The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, 2009, may temporarily reduce the premium you have to pay to purchase Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continuation coverage under the medi [...]
Aetna has corrected the coordination-of-benefits policy of the national dental plan it administers for UTU members employed on freight railroads and Amtrak. The change applies only where Aetna is the secondary payer and the primary payer is another dental-insurance plan. An a [...]
The SMART-TD Membership Services Department has compiled a list of frequently asked questions from SMART-TD rail members regarding medical-benefits coverage and has supplied appropriate answers to these questions. These questions pertain to coverage when an employee is workin [...]
By Norman K. Brown, M.D., UTU medical consultant Please wash your hands. Micro-organisms – bacteria, viruses, yeasts – are all around us. Bacteria live especially closely with us, most often in a friendly manner, in the nose, mouth, lower intestine, genitals, on t [...]
By Dr. Norman BrownUTU Medical Consultant Baseball legend Mickey Mantle once joked, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” I wish more of us, including myself, would look into their crystal balls of the future and find themse [...]
FELA Update By Mark Allen Coordinator of UTU Designated Legal Counsel I frequently hear about injured railroad workers who are confused by statements made to them by railroad claims department persons or supervisors that if they don’t see doctors chosen by the railroad, [...]
Mammograms and Pap tests have saved many lives by detecting early, curable cancers at a reasonable cost and minimal inconvenience. Many more lives could be saved if there were more testing for colon cancer, which is a fairly common disease, but one which can be cured with a h [...]
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