While simple in theory, life insurance benefits can quickly become complex when beneficiary designations are incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date. As an employee benefit, group life insurance is intended to help employees protect the financial futures of their family members or individuals or organizations they care about. Without careful beneficiary planning, intended recipients may face long delays in receiving benefits—or miss out completely.

Employees can name any person or entity (except their own employer) as a beneficiary, including family members, friends, trusts or charities. But without proper beneficiary designations, an employee’s death benefit can sometimes be left to chance. If there is no beneficiary on file, death benefits are typically paid according to the group policy provisions. In these cases, the beneficiaries may or may not be who the employee had in mind.

There are many reasons why it’s important for health care providers to pay close attention to the management of their equipment. Because medical equipment plays a key role in diagnosing and treating patients, regular equipment maintenance is a must for keeping patients safe and comfortable.

Having equipment malfunction unexpectedly isn’t just inconvenient, it can affect patient safety. An equipment maintenance program includes procedures for inspection, as well as preventive and corrective maintenance to ensure that equipment is safe to use and is providing accurate results. When medical equipment is routinely inspected, potential issues can be identified and resolved prior to equipment failure.